


An Unexpected Guest

by Tinkerbun



Series: An Unexpected Guest-verse [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Is non-romantic slowburn a thing, Mental Health Issues, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Multi, Multiverse, Mysterio Has Real Powers, Mysterio is an Avenger, Parent Quentin Beck, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Angst, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Quentin Beck, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Quentin Beck Is A Good Guy, Scott Lang is a Good Bro, Separation Anxiety, Slow Burn, Survivor Guilt, Tony Angst, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, but he's not a helpless baby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2020-06-29 12:02:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19829809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tinkerbun/pseuds/Tinkerbun
Summary: **** THIS WORK CONTAINS COMPLETE AND BLATANT SPOILERS FOR END GAME AND SPIDER-MAN FAR FROM HOME!!!**** HONESTLY THIS SUMMARY IS SPOILERY TOO!!! STOP READING NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN BOTH!!!-Quentin Beck lied about the multiverse. It was made up, a trick, a fabrication. So why was Peter ripped from his universe only to land in one where Mysterio was an Avenger, Tony Stark was alive, and he was the one who died fighting Thanos?Peter already wasn't coping great. How was he supposed to find his way back home, to his life that was in shambles and his mourning of Mr. Stark, when this team of Avengers felt kind of like family?**UPDATING HAS RESUMED!!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a huge change of pace for me as I usually write gay smut BUT this was born out of my desperate need for hero Mysterio (because I'm not into villians but unf he looked good). This is mostly plot driven but there will be detours of everyone bonding with Peter, as well as diving into the mental health and grief of multiple characters

Everywhere he went, Peter felt eyes burning into him, whispers ghosting his ears, saw shadows stumbling towards him, then shrinking back. He was left to suffocate, everyday, knowing the world was watching him and anticipating his slip up, to jump at parading his failures as entertainment. Anxiety boiled at a constant inside his chest when he realized he was a sacrifice they were fattening up with gossip and hysteria; once his secret was confirmed, they’d hang Spider-Man out to dry.

Each gossip column theory was a knife in his back. Was Spider-Man colluding with Thanos all along? Did he murder Tony Stark for causing the blip that brought everyone back? Then slaughter the heroic Mysterio for finding the truth out? Spider-Man has to have something to do with Captain America vanishing, right? Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Spider-Man…. How do we know this Peter Parker kid isn’t some mutant schizo freak?! Where is he, huh?! If Peter Parker doesn’t have something to hide?!

He stumbled from the bed to the hallway, dragging himself along the wall before collapsing in the bathroom and gasping for breath, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think straight with this pounding in his head. Stripping and crawling into the shower, he sat fetal while the hot water pounded on his back. 

It had only been a month since the broadcast. Pepper called him within seconds, urgently hissing “Wherever you are, Peter, get out of there. Don’t let anyone see where you’re going, don’t talk to anyone, don’t stop for anyone, don’t have contact with ANYONE until I get this sorted out.” 

“Mrs. Stark-” Peter cried back in confusion, but she was already off the line, and within minutes the Stark Industries CEO had a vicious legal team and living arrangements lined up for what was to come in the next months. When questioned on her involvement, she described it as her ‘moral responsibility to aid a Stark Industries scholarship beneficiary’ and nothing more. 

Happy assured him that Aunt May had been whisked off somewhere safe, secure, and most importantly, unknown. Just like he was. Untracked. And Alone.

Changes took place in Peter that he couldn’t explain; the stress, the fear, the grief tore away at his mental health and twisted up what remained of his insides. He couldn’t sleep without seeing Beck’s illusions, the darkness and shadows and corpses haunting him. EDITH tried her best to walk Peter through his daily panic attacks but he was growing more erratic each day, his brain chemistry being wrecked havoc on by the unbridled depression and anxiety. He felt very far away from the person who came back from his fight against Mysterio victorious, and couldn’t remember what it felt like to be deserving of Mr. Stark’s faith.

The shower turning cold brought Peter back to himself, enough to catch some shaky breaths. Sluggishly pulling himself out, Peter dressed again and made his way back to bed. The lights were still dim, very very dim, because he couldn’t stand waking up from one of his Mysterio induced nightmares in complete darkness. Crawling in and staring at the ceiling, Peter let himself become numb with exhaustion. At this point, numb was the closest thing he had to happy, and he sank into it without resistance.

Just when he was on the cusp of falling asleep, a tiny voice whispered in the very back of his mind, “Mr. Stark told the world himself he was Iron Man, because he wasn’t a coward.” And Peter started his whole night all over again.

  
-

Peter jolted awake, not from a nightmare or panic reaction to a sound from outside, but to frenzied static and beeping from his bedside table. EDITH’s lenses were flashing on and off, scrambled like a virus bulldozing through a computer. “EDITH, what’s wrong?” Peter almost shouted as he threw the sunglasses on, and EDITH replied in a broken electronic tone “Accessed from- unknown…. location... protocols being overriden, Peter, may I suggest-” 

The whole building jolted as if hit by a landslide and Peter jumped up, panic coursing through his body as he scrambled to a dresser on the other side of the bedroom. Tearing the bottom compartment out as the building continued to tank, Peter reached all the way back and ripped out his spider suit. 'In case of an emergency' Pepper had insisted. Without warning, the floor vanished from Peter’s feet and he was left plummeting, gripping tightly onto EDITH and his suit and too paralyzed with fear to make a sound. The buzz inside him that usually alerted him of danger became a shill scream, shaking his bones and causing white splotches to spot his vision. 

He fell and fell and fell and fell, lights zipping past him, his body being pulled in different directions, the pressure starting to cause physical pain until he was teetering on the edge of passing out-

Peter’s body hit the floor like a wet rag with a silent scream, his senses failing. He was too disoriented to tell if he had actually blacked out or not, a white noise filling his ears as he willed his body to move or eyes to open but they weren’t yet in sync with his body. The white noise morphed into distant voices speaking rapidly but he couldn’t make them out. Slowly forcing himself to roll onto his stomach, Peter took a few labored breaths before pushing himself onto his hands and knees and finally opened his eyes, squinting at the sterile white light. 

“A lab?” Peter said under his breath as his blurry vision cleared and he took in the room of advanced equipment and people in white coats, all frozen in shock.

Spider-Man was just dropped neatly into the lap of HYDRA.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you guys are enjoying my work, please leave comments so I don't feel totally selfish and self indulgent!!

Gripping his head, Peter staggered to his feet and swayed in place as the room continued to spin. He looked up and saw a ceiling going up a few stories, the building seeming to be a massive industrial warehouse. Shooting a web to the highest pipe he could reach, Peter ziplined himself up and away from the strange men advancing on him. He could now see he had been on a giant circular platform that was slowly whirring down. He quickly turned to tie the arms of spider suit around his neck like a spare cardigan and tucked EDITH away.

A BANG brought his attention back to the present when a misfired shot hit the pipe he was clinging to. Bolts of electricity sparked before dying out, and Peter saw thick metallic ropes tied around the pipe where it had landed. They weren't shooting bullets at him, but what looked like a restraining and binding device. If one of those hit him, he'd be shocked and wrapped up in the thick cords like a present.

He bolted, jumping from pipe to pipe across the tall ceiling trying to find an exit as angry men yelled below him, heart pounding in his ribcage. Panic was blurring his focus and he was having a harder and harder time sticking to where he touched. Finally reaching a metal staircase on the other side of the warehouse, Peter stumbled into his landing, hitting the wall. Fumbling EDITH out of his pocket and onto his face, he sputtered "EDITH, EDITH, are you there, I need help, something, do you have, like, missiles or something?"

"I'm trying to connect to the Stark system, Peter, but I'm being flagged as suspicious by the security system."

"What, why?! How?" Peter said breathlessly, sprinting across one of the long walkways as he saw agents racing up the stairs towards him.

"There's already an EDITH system connected." EDITH replied, an edge of confusion on the AI's voice. "I believe I can force the permissions. But I'm not sure what sort of repercussions that could have. Do I have your authorization to do so, Peter?" 

"YES, yes yes yes EDITH, whatever you need to do, just hurry!" Peter shrieked back as he dodged another projectile.

Flashing lights blinded Peter for a split second, seeing a rapid scroll of code blitz through EDITH’s lenses. Suddenly the strange platform Peter had landed across the room on sprung to life, all the connected computers going blue screen. Smoke billowed from the base as the machine seemed to overload with electricity and whir faster and faster. Peter stumbled when an entire side blew out and sent a violent shock through the building, the surge seeming to travel through the electrical cords, machinery blowing out throughout the building and causing the lights to flicker erratically. Most of the strange men chasing him redirected to salvage their equipment, trying to access the failing computers to shut everything down.

A fire sparked and engulfed the platform in the blink of an eye, leaving Peter only a moment to brace himself for the explosion that ripped through the air, flinging him back across the wall with a painful grunt. He laid boneless for a minute, drained from... whatever had happened, however he had gotten here. Struggling to raise onto his elbows, Peter breathed heavily from exertion and tried to take in his surroundings. Smoke was pouring into the building while the lab attendants ran around like chickens with their heads cut off.

"EDITH, did it work? Please tell me there's some floodgate you can open right now or something!" Peter pleaded and EDITH's voice glitched through the static, not yet fully loaded. Peter's head whipped around, searching for a door, a window, even a wall that looked thin enough to body slam.

A blast startled Peter, his head whipping up to see a hole get blown through the ceiling above the fire, and he felt relief for the first time in forever when he saw War Machine and Falcon drop in. He ducked into a shadowy corner and quickly changed into his spider suit, feeling excited, and kind of hopeful, to do Avengers stuff after the absolutely nightmareish past month he’s had. Jumping onto the floor, he ran towards the two other heros who were finishing up putting out the fire and apprehending the few HYDRA agents who hadn’t already fled.

“Hey guys! Hey! War Machine! And Mr. Falcon!” Peter cried out with a grin under his mask, not sure if Falcon’s title had been officially changed yet to replace Captain America. They turned to look behind themselves when Peter saw shock flash across their faces and body language so he stopped in his tracks, realizing they’d probably know about him being in hiding.

“This, uh, this isn’t what it looks like!” Peter tried to defend, but he also didn’t know what it was supposed to look like anyway. “I swear I wasn’t here on purpose, I just, uh…. showed up and these guys were here and they were chasing me so of course I ran, but that” Peter pointed to the now crispy platform, “blew up and…. and you guys showed up.” He finished lamely, wondering if he’d still get in trouble. Rhodey’s metal mask lifted to reveal his face, screwed up in horror, choking out, “Peter?”

Anxiety crashed through his body, tightening up in Peter’s stomach. Wherever he was, it must have been in the middle of something huge, for ‘seasoned’ Avengers only probably. Shakily, he reached up and removed his Spider-man mask, beginning to blabber “I’m- I’m really sorry, I don’t know how I got here but I, um, I-”

Now both of the older men’s mouths were dropped open in shock, Falcon’s hand shooting up with his palm out, signaling Peter to be quiet. His body was tense and hunched over slightly, breathing hard before he said through gritted teeth, “Peter, just be cool, we’re all going to be cool, ok?” Peter nodded a little too quick, showing he was growing more and more panicked. “Ok, Peter, everything’s fine. I just want to know something. Did you come out of that... ‘thing’?” Falcon nodded his head to the side, directed at the platform. 

“I don’t know how but I- yeah, yeah.” Peter spat out, breathing quickly. The two older heros looked at each other, jaws clenched and eyebrows furrowed angrily. They exchanged a few aggressive whispers before Falcon slapped a hand to his forehead and threw his hands up, turning and walking away. War Machine cursed under his breath and then composed himself and walked towards Peter, reaching out to put a hand on the teen’s shoulder. Peter shrunk back a little but still allowed it, asking nervously, “Am I in trouble?”

Sadness slipped onto Rhodey’s face as he shook his head and insisted, “No, no Peter, this… this isn’t your fault. Let’s just head back and talk to everyone, ok?”

Peter brightened up at the thought of heading to finally see the rebuilt Avengers headquarters instead of being holed back up in hiding. “Yeah! Yeah, cool!” He grinned, tugging the mask back on.

Sam had wandered over to the massive control desk, dusting soot and shrapnel away. He knocked papers off it and onto the floor, searching angrily, until he finally unearthed a ruined pair of sunglasses. Tearing out the wires that connected them to the computers, Sam’s eyes flickered to Rhodey ushering Peter towards an exit, cursing again when he confirmed the exact same pair of glasses were pristine in Peter’s grip.


	3. 3

Peter jumped excitedly from the car as they pulled up to the rebuilt Avengers headquarters, looking mostly the same if not a little more advanced and spruced up. It was a long and boring drive, almost 2 hours actually, and he wondered if it would have been faster for the two other men to fly instead of call a car in. Rhodey and Sam drove with him, silent on their phones messaging furiously but Peter was glad they stayed; he wasn’t on his own anymore and the rest of the heros could probably come up with a good plan for his identity issue. 

“So who’s all here? Like, what’s the team looking like?” Spider-man asked as he bounded out of the car in full suit, hands fisted in excitement. “We called some people in. Everyone wants to see you.” War Machine replied tensely but Peter felt happy butterflies. Everyone wanted to see HIM. 

The three heros waited in the lounging room, Sam leaning up against a window with his arms folded, Rhodey pacing across the room, and Peter sitting on the huge couch alone, hands folded tightly in his lap but his knee bouncing. He grinned to himself at the thought of this being the step towards becoming a more concrete member of the Avengers, not just someone they called when they happened to have a job for him. Now that Thanos was gone, there wouldn’t be anymore fighting within the team like in Germany, right? Peter’s head flicked up when he heard a door ‘woosh’ open and he instinctively stood and took his mask off, trying to hide a smile by biting his lip when-

Captain American walked in. THE Captain America.

Peter’s face fell and his mouth opened in shock. He hadn’t gotten to see Cap after he returned to their current time as an elderly man, but this was certainly the Cap he fought alongside against Thanos. 

Closely behind him came Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, the Hulk, Scarlet Witch, and most shocking of all, Black Widow. Rapidly staring at each person one by one, Peter felt adrenaline burst through his system at the realization that something was horribly, horribly wrong. Cap took a few steps towards Peter but Peter’s arms shot up outstretched to warn Cap to stay away while he stumbled back, almost tripping over the couch.

“Son-” Steve said in a careful tone, but Peter stammered back, “No, no, I don’t- what is going on? You… you shouldn’t be here. Like this.” The rest of the Avengers shuffled uncomfortably except for Doctor Strange, who strode ahead until he was even with Captain America.

“Peter, I know this must be shocking for you, but I need you to talk to me. Tell me. Do you know who Thanos is?” 

Peter nodded yes shakily, and Doctor Strange said, “Ok. Was there a blip and how long did it last?” Peter tried to choke out through his dry mouth “Five years… we were gone five years before we fought him, don’t you remember?”

“A few more questions Peter, how long has it been since you fought him?”

“Nine months.” Peter wheezed out, having a harder time breathing, and Doctor Strange continued slowly, “Yes, nine months. Now I need to know, Peter, ok? Did anyone die in your fight with Thanos?”

Peter went white as a sheet, hunching over with pain in his stomach as stress caused his insides to tense up. He saw Falcon make a move towards him so he whipped around and stumbled back from him as well. “Take it easy Peter-” Sam said calmly, slipping into his training from helping soldiers with PTSD. “I need you to take deep breaths, man, go ahead and sit on the floor if you need to.” But Peter resisted, face flushing and heart beat pounding in his ears. He whipped around to stare everyone down, searching for a face that was on his side, but everyone gave him tense, sad looks.

“How… I don’t understand, how could you all forget Mr. Stark?!” Peter yelled out and everyone’s faces paled. “He died for us… and you’re asking me what happened?”

“Peter.” Captain America spoke up again, voice strong with authority. “We need to talk to you about the quantum realm. About how we time travelled.” 

“The time heist?” Peter asked breathlessly, remembering being told about it shortly after the battle with Thanos. Scott momentarily perked up with a small grin before Wanda elbowed him in the ribcage and he composed himself.

Captain America nodded slowly and continued with caution. “That lab you were at today. Those were HYDRA agents. They had five whole years to continue working in the shadows while the world was thrown into chaos from the snap. They found out about the quantum realm and our time traveling after the blip brought everyone back, but didn’t know how it worked. They tried to build their own technology and attempt traveling in time themselves. We found out where they were testing it and sent them to go stop it.” He nodded at Rhodey and Sam on the other side of the room. “But they didn’t make a time machine. They couldn’t. They messed up. And instead, they opened the multiverse.”

Peter’s heart skipped a beat and the cold grip of fear spread up his legs and throughout his body. His voice stuck in his throat, Peter took another few steps back, shaking his head wildly. Beck’s voice echoed in his head, his fake hero story of multiple dimensions.

“This was stolen from Stark Industries three months ago.” Sam interrupted, holding up the broken EDITH glasses. “We assume they thought it would give them some insight to our quantum realm technology, but instead, we think it created a connection to you and your pair when they opened the multiverse.” 

The voices were very far away from Peter now, the whole room growing hot. “You’re wrong.” He stammered out hoarsely. “There’s no such thing as the multiverse. It was a lie.”

Suddenly there was another ‘woosh’ of a door opening, and Peter’s heart exploded at the sight of Quentin Beck rushing into the room, his glass helmet gone and eyes wet and bloodshot.

“Beck-” Steve barked but Beck rushed past him towards Peter, crying out, “Oh my fucking God, Peter, you, you’re-”

A web shot out and grabbed Beck’s throat, cutting him off and smashing him into the floor. Peter hung onto the web, choking Beck tightly as the surrounding Avengers armed themselves and faced him, all frozen in position. Beck grabbed at the web around his neck and wheezed, but made no movement to resist. 

“Peter, stop-” Doctor Strange yelled but Peter gritted his teeth and hissed at Beck, “You’re supposed to be dead!”

“Man, look, we can talk about this, just-” Sam reasoned, taking a few slow steps towards Peter with his arms raised but Peter tightened the web around Beck’s throat and Sam fell back.

“You don’t understand!” Peter said with a cracked voice, chest beginning to heave with laboured breaths. Memories of the hallucinations began resurfacing in Peter’s mind, the flickering lights, endless hallways, the darkness Beck sent him through. His heart was beating like an animal trapped in a metal claw. “Beck made up the multiverse. Fury, he found out Beck was an old employee of Mr. Stark. He showed up a month ago using cloaked drones to create disasters and special effects to make it seem like he had super powers. He’s pretending to be a hero from another dimension so he can be the new Iron Man! He’s tricking you!”

But the other Avengers were inching towards them, standing defensively, and Doctor Strange insisted, “Peter, I’ve known about the multiverses for a long time. I know your Stephen Strange does too. Beck never left Stark Industries here. He’s been a member of the Avengers longer than you were, and his powers are real. Your Beck thinking he made up the multiverse… I don’t know if I can explain it other than a coincidence. Please, just stop and talk to us.”

The eyes of all these heros bearing into him, the people he admired and fought alongside, Peter wavered under the pressure and let up the web choking Beck enough to let him breathe. Beck coughed and gasped on the floor, rising up to the elbows and looking at Peter completely distraught. “Peter, I’m… I’m sorry, kid-”

‘You are just a scared little kid in a sweatsuit’

The words roared in Peter’s head and all he could see was the abandoned building with Beck, the corpses of his fallen members scrambling towards him in the illusion. Peter grabbed the web and gripped it tight around Beck’s throat, throwing his arms and flinging Beck through a decorative glass pane in the corner of the room. Beck shattered right through it and Peter whipped his arms again inwards, dragging Beck back to a couple feet in front of him. 

“He’s lying!!’ Peter screamed, web now locked around Beck’s throat. “He tried to kill my friends… he pushed me in front of a train, he tried to shoot me in the fucking head!! Why don’t you believe me?!”

A blast from Rhodey’s watch shot out and severed the tie of the web between Peter and Beck, releasing Beck from the strangling. Everyone made a break for Peter to subdue him, nothing but blurs, but Peter went on autopilot. Mask in hand, Peter tore kicking and punching through the group of Avengers and bolted out of the door, running blind through hallways and down stairs, stumbling over his feet. Unable to calm his hyperventilating, he pushed through his light headed-ness in search of an escape before he turned a corner and collided with something hard. Falling back on his ass, Peter gasped and looked up to see the Winter Soldier. 

“You-” He started, before Bucky quickly dropped down to one knee, touching Peter’s cheek with his metal hand. Peter flinched at the freezing sensation, the cold giving him a bit of a shock.

“Me. From Germany. You remember?” Bucky replied, moving his cold hand down from Peter’s cheek and around the back of Peter’s neck, spreading his freezing fingers out to cover more surface area. Heart still pounding but mind a little clearer, Peter nodded dumbly. Bucky raised his other hand, his human one, and held it out for Peter. “Touch.” He said, not demanding but asking. Peter reached out and felt a warm, fleshy hand.

“Can illusions do that?” Bucky asked, nodding at the tactile difference between the two hands Peter was feeling. Peter furrowed his eyebrows, a sting in his throat as he thought desperately and finally replied, “I… don’t know.” Bucky shrugged, understanding his skepticism. “Fair enough. And you wouldn’t take my word for it, would ya?” Peter was silent and after a moment Bucky stood and extended his hand, helping Peter onto his feet. Still anxious but a bit more grounded, Peter finally said, “If this is a multiverse, then where am I? Let me talk to ‘this’ Spider-Man.”

Bucky sighed heavily through his nose and replied, “I’m sorry kid, but you can’t. Not in this universe at least.” Frustration flashed through Peter and he demanded, “Why not? If this isn’t an illusion then what do you have to have hide?” “Please don’t make this harder then it has to be.” Bucky pleaded back but Peter grabbed onto his arm, insisting, “Please if I can just-”

“Peter…” Bucky said slowly, putting his metal arm on the boy’s shoulder and holding him firmly. “You can’t. In our universe, it wasn’t Stark that died battling Thanos. It was you.”

For a split second, Peter’s mind was completely blank as the cogs in his head stopped turning. The colour drained from his face as he slowly looked down, staring into the floor. A shuffling noise behind him brought his focus back and he turned around to see the other heros walking hesitantly towards them.

Peter studied them and connected the dots of the tired, sad faces they had worn since laying eyes on him. Nat was pursing her lips, trying to push back tears. Wanda was gently crying, wiping tears away before they became too noticeable. Steve and Stephen themselves had flushed faces and looked to be blinking back wetness, and Scott looked away, biting his lip and unable to make eye contact. Hulk looked like he was shredded with guilt. And finally, after a moment, Beck limped into the room, light blood streaked down his face and eyes torn with grief. They had all stared at him like he was a ghost because, well.. He pretty much was.

Peter shakily reached into his suit pocket and pulled out EDITH, slipping her on and saying breathlessly, “EDITH, are there any illusions or projections here?” She quickly responded, “No Peter, there are no deceptive measures activated here. A scan of this Quentin Beck does show genuine radioactive traces.” Nodding in response, Peter slowly took the sunglasses back off, staring at the team with red eyes. 

“So Mr. Stark,” he tried to say casually but his voice cracked and he coughed to clear his throat, then wet his lips and took in a shuddering breath before hot tears ran down his face. “In this universe he’s still alive?”

Captain American sighed and nodded firmly. Peter took in another shuddery breath and looked off in the distance, saying “Oh, cool. That’s cool, that’s…” His blood pressure suddenly tanked and he crouched on the floor, struggling to breathe while gritting his teeth to hold back sobs. While most of the Avengers members made a move towards Peter, Sam threw out an arm to block their path. “Give him space, he’s probably in shock. Go hang out somewhere so he can chill and breathe” He whispered heatedly. Reluctantly, the other members slowly filed out with Beck straggling behind, staring at Peter anxiously. Scott peeked back and noticed, walking back up to Beck and put a comforting hand on his shoulder, helping to steer him out. Bucky ran a frigid hand through Peter’s hair, making sure to touch his forehead and temples during the movements. Sam supervised while Bucky grounded Peter with the cold contact, eventually helping Peter come back to himself enough that Sam could get him back on his feet.

In another part of the Avengers building, Steve grabbed a set of keys and marched to the garage, hopping in a car and pulling out to the driveway. Lost in thought, he jolted at the sound of knocking when he paused to shift gears. He saw it was a slightly cleaned up Beck; blood gone and now in normal clothes, but looking disheveled and a nasty bruise starting to form around his throat. Steve rolled down the window and Beck asked, “You going to see him?” Steve nodded back with tight lips and said “He’s gotta know.” Beck looked away, biting his lip and nodding in agreement before adding “Let me come too.”

They rode in silence for the first five minutes, Beck white knuckled, gripping his knees. Finally, at a particularly long red light, Beck said quietly, “He said I tried to kill him. I was a bad guy.”

“It wasn’t you.” Steve said back sternly and Beck turned at him, eyes squinting and mouth open angrily. “Did you see how Peter looked at me?” He asked with an edge, voice slowly growing louder. “Peter Parker. He was just as much my kid as he was Tony’s. I would have died for him. But I didn’t. And in his universe, I spat on Tony’s grave and tried to murder him. Now Peter’s back, and he’s fucking terrified of me.”

They drove in silence for another few minutes before Steve replied, “None of us know how to open the multiverse. How to navigate it. Time traveling through the quantum realm is a piece of cake compared to this. Even if we get Tony on board to collaborate with you, Banner, Strange, and Lang, we’ll be lucky if we figure the technology out. But _this_ Peter Parker needs to go home. I don’t know how long we’ll have. So show him _this_ Quentin Beck, while we have a second chance with him. Because I think third chances are even rarer than second ones.”

Beck was silent, turned facing out the window. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So honestly I was going to wait a few days before uploading this chapter BUT I felt so encouraged by the nice comments I got I decided why wait! Thank you guys so much for your feedback, I'd really appreciate it if you all kept letting me know how you're liking the story unfold :)


	4. 4

It was a long drive so Steve and Beck took a minute to stretch their legs after hopping out of the car. Steve fished his phone out of his pocket, read for another minute, and then let out a low whistle.

“What’s the damage?’ Beck asked, and Steve replied, “From Bucky. Strange probed for more info on Peter’s universe. Couldn’t get too much out of him right now, but apparently after his Beck lost the fight against Spider-Man... he revealed Peter’s identity to the entire world. Peter and his aunt have been in lockdown for a month because of it. Mysterio died fighting Spider-Man but before his death, sent a video to the press accusing Peter of murdering him to take over the role of the new Iron Man.”

Mouth hanging open, Beck stared momentarily at Steve completely dumbfounded before sputtering out, “You- you’re joking, right? I- I fucking did what?” Steve barked back, “It’s not you, Beck. You can’t try and take responsibility for this.”

But Beck just slapped a hand to his forehead and dragged it down his face, muttering under his breath, “I can’t believe… holy-” 

They heard a door unlock and swing open and whipped their heads in the direction of the lakeside cabin. Pepper slowly strolled out with a sad smile, stopping to lean up against the railing. Both men sighed and walked towards the front porch.

“Hi Pepper.” Steve said solemnly. “Hi Cap.” Pepper gently smiled back, looking down towards them still on the grass. Beck took a shaky breath and said “Hey Pep.” Pepper looked to the floor quickly, pursing her lips to try and hide her small grin before her eyes flickered back up and she said, “Good to see you, Quentin.” Steve cleared his throat nervously and asked, “Is Tony around to… talk?” Pepper sighed and said, “He’s usually around. Doesn’t really leave, still. Hasn’t gone out in public since he put me in charge of Stark Industries. But right now he’s walking around the forest with Morgan. She’s convinced she saw a cat roaming around and thinks she can catch it. We’re on day three of her determined to find it.” 

Steve and Beck smiled fondly at the thought of Morgan being the only one to successfully get Tony out of the house- to entertain her idea that she’d be able to catch an agile cat nonetheless. Pepper gently beckoned them the backyard and the three found themselves sitting around an outdoors table, overlooking the lake.

“So what brings you guys here?” Pepper asked softly while staring out at the water, already well aware something must be up. Steve and Beck shared a look before Steve wet his lips and said, “It’s about Peter.”

Pepper’s head snapped towards them, eyes crinkled while pain flashed on her face. “Peter?” She asked breathlessly, disbelief dripping in her voice. They nodded shakily, unable to hold eye contact.

“There was an.... Incident. We don’t fully understand what happened… how it happened… why it happened… but someone tried to mess with time travel again, and instead, they opened up a pathway to another universe. They brought another universe’s Peter Parker here. And in his universe, Tony was the one that died fighting Thanos.”

Pepper stared at the table and shook her head gently for a moment, struggling to process what absolutely crazy thing they were saying. She let out a dry laugh and said, “And you need Tony. To help figure out traveling alternative universes like he figured out time travel.” Steve and Beck looked her in the eyes and nodded guiltily. Pepper let out a deep sigh, closing her eyes tightly. 

“How’s that Peter doing? With Tony being…” Her sentence drifted off and Steve replied, “Not good... I think really not good.” Pepper nodded before giving a painful smile towards Beck and saying, “Well, at least he has-” Beck clenched his jaw and looked away, letting out a sharp sigh through his nose. “Pep, I’m… in that universe, I’m… not an Avenger.” He said simply and her eyes widened with understanding. She sat for a minute, elbow on the table and hand curled, touching her mouth nervously, deep in thought. They were all jolted out of their thoughts though when they heard the distant laughing and talking of Morgan.

Pepper sighed and then pushed herself up from the table, motioning the two men to follow her around to the front of the house. They saw Morgan and Tony walking hand in hand towards their home, Tony staring softly with a smile at her while she chatted. Quickly, she caught sight of everyone in the front yard and squealed, waving to them wildly. Tony looked up assuming to see Pepper there alone, only for something to flash across his face that Steve had seen before. 

_ ‘I lost the kid.’ _

Quickly that look turned to rage that Tony tried to swallow down in front of Morgan, scooping her up and walking directly past them and into the house. Steve and Beck looked shamefully at the ground as they heard the front door slam, and Pepper gently touched both of their arms. “I’ll talk to him.” She said softly, before slowly following Tony into their house as well.

“Can I go see Uncle Beck and Mr. Steve?” Morgan asked excitedly as Tony walked her to her bedroom filled with toys. “Maybe later. Until mom’s done talking with them, though, you gotta stay here. And no funny business trying to sneak downstairs either, or I’ll tell the cat you’re looking for him.” Morgan’s jaw dropped and she giggled hysterically, protesting, “You wouldn’t!” Tony smiled back, “You wanna bet, kiddo?” Before shutting her into her room and walking back to the kitchen, busying himself with some dishes. He felt Pepper’s presence as she entered the room but ignored her.

“So how was cat hunting? Morgan catch her first pet yet?” Pepper asked and Tony said, “Oh, no, yeah, you know, not yet. But it’s only a gigantic forest, I’m sure she’ll find him soon.” Pepper quickly walked towards her husband until she was directly behind him, gently sighing before saying, “Tony.”

There was a loud clatter as he dropped the mug he was cleaning, it shattering in the sink.

“I, uh, oops. This new soap is just insane, so powerful and slippery. I mean the grease fighting capabilities are-”

“Tony.” Pepper said firmly. “You have guests here to speak with you. I need you to go talk with them.”

Tony stayed turned away, falling silent for a moment. His hands were gripping the counter tightly, shoulders hunched. Eventually he found his voice and replied, “Yeah I know Pep, but I’m just so busy, really slammed right now you know, I just need you to let them know I’ll get back to them and-” A strong hand wrapped tightly around Tony’s wrist and he finally turned to look at Pepper, staring directly into her wet, reddening eyes.

“I wasn’t asking, Tony.”

He studied her face for a minute, his own flickering through an array of painful emotions. Eventually he nodded hesitantly and gave in. “Yeah… yeah, I’ll- just real quick, see what they want.”

Tony walked out of the room and Pepper’s line of vision and to the front door, ice cold anxiety gripping his chest. It took him a minute to finally open it and walk out, staring lowly at the two other Avengers, eyebrows furrowed. He met them on the front lawn, lips pursed tightly, squaring up directly to Steve as Beck watched to the side. Tony glared directly into Steve’s eyes, nostrils flaring with the laboured breaths he was trying to stifle.

_ ‘We’ll lose.’ _

_ ‘And we’ll do that together, too.’ _

“Tony.” Steve said dryly, nodding slightly.

“Cap.” Tony grunted back, unable to hide the venom in his voice. After a moment he turned his head slightly towards Beck, and said a little less harshly, “Quentin.”

Beck sadly nodded back, “Hey Tony.” Tony turned sharply back to Steve and said, “So what evil, ungodly force brought you back to darken my doorstep, huh, Cap?” Steve let out a shaky breath and said desperately, “We need you, Tony. HYDRA messed with some time travel tech, and it’s bad.”

Tony chuckled bitterly and replied, “Of course you need my help, The Avengers always come knocking on my door when they need something from me. What, HYDRA turn too many people into babies?”

“Tony-”, “No, Rogers. I have nothing left to give, I’m bled dry. I’m not making the same mistake over and over until I get something else taken from me. I’ve only got two left anyway.” Tony turned back to look at Beck staring pleadingly at him before saying, “Tony, you gotta know-”

“Do I really want to know, Quentin?” Tony hissed, “Do I really… _really_ want to know?” and he shook his head, muttering, “You two need to leave. I’ve hung up the cape. Whatever mess you’ve gotten into, I hope you figure it out.” Tony turned on his heel and started walking back up to his house.

“Tony, wait-” Steve yelled back at him and Tony drawled dismissively, “If you want to come back to visit Morgan, Quentin, you can. Just no shop talk. She’ll be happy to see you.” “Tony, please, listen-” Steven insisted again before Tony waved his hand goodbye to them over his shoulder, sarcastically saying, “Have a safe drive home you two!” and turning his back to the Avengers, walking up the porch steps, reaching for the front door handle- 

“Peter’s back.”

Tony froze in place, tremors running throughout his body. He slowly turned back around to look at them, eyes squinted and head low. “What are you saying?”

Beck straightened up more, chest puffed and jaw clenched. “I said, Peter is back.”

The colour from Tony’s face drained and he slowly stalked down the stairs, body becoming tense and shaky. Walking up to them, he stared viciously at Steve for confirmation. 

“It’s true.” Steve said, and Tony fisted the front of Steve’s shirt, jerking him forward violently and holding him in place. 

“Don’t fuck with me, Cap.” Tony hissed “Don’t you dare come to my home, after what happened, and say-”

Beck put a firm hand on Tony’s shoulder and the older man flinched in surprise, turning to look at his friend. “Tony. I need you to listen, okay? HYDRA messed with the quantum realm, and they opened the multiverse and dragged another Peter Parker here. One that lived through the fight with Thanos. Their lab was destroyed in an explosion. We called people in; Banner, Lang, Strange, and I need your help trying to rebuild the tech and figure out how to send Peter back to his universe.” 

Tony stared at Beck horrified, slowly letting Steve’s shirt slip through his grip. He gaze was searching, unfocused for a moment, before he asked, “You want to send him back? We live in a world where Thanos is defeated and the rest of the Avengers rebuilt stronger than ever, and you want to send him back to… whatever shithole he probably came from?”

Beck scoffed angrily and his composure cracked a bit, spitting his reply, “You think I want to send him back? Tony, we don’t know the repercussions of traveling across universes. What if he starts fading from our reality, like a bad movie trope? What if his universe collapses without the protection of their Spider-Man? His friends and family, who’s Peter Parker is still very much alive?” Beck wet his dry lips, breathing deeply, body flushing with stress and adrenaline. “Do you want to know who died in his universe, Tony?” 

Tony opened his mouth but nothing came out, and Beck spat out, “You. You’re the one that snapped. A world without Iron Man. Can you even imagine Peter in it?” 

Tony’s eyes went wide and he looked at the ground frazzled. When he found his voice, Tony insisted, “But he has-”

“No, Tony.” Beck said wracked with pain and guilt. “In his universe, I was a disgruntled Stark ex-employee. I tried to kill him, to get EDITH. But he killed me.”

Tony stared back at Beck in disbelief, very obviously slipping into shock, distantly remembering Pepper telling him how one of their labs had gotten broken into. He hadn’t cared, because the person he was supposed to give it to was dead anyway. “He had EDITH?” He asked breathlessly and Steve jumped back in, explaining “The EDITH they stole from Stark Industries three months ago. They tried to hack it with their technology, and we think that’s why Peter got drawn here.”

Tony started shutting down, looking around wildly while trying to process his thoughts, breaths becoming faster and shallower, before Steve reached out and firmly grasped him on the shoulders.

“Tony.” He said desperately, unable to mask his own pain. “I’m not joking when I say we need you to help figure out what’s going. But regardless, this Peter really, **really** needs you. Please. Come back to the Avengers headquarters.”

Tony stared deeply at Cap for a moment before nodding numbly and choking out, “I’ll… I’ll come. I’ll be there tomorrow.” He looked like he had more to say but Steve could tell his throat was closed up. They nodded sadly at each other before Steve and Beck turned to leave.

“Quentin.” Tony choked out and Beck turned back around. “One second. I need to talk to you.” 

Steve went back to the car alone as Beck and Tony faced each other. Tony let out a tight breath before mumbling, “I have something I need to ask you, as a friend. And I hope you won’t be… offended by it.” Beck nodded slowly, understanding. Tony leaned forward until they were eye to eye, and whispered heatedly, “I need to know that there is absolutely no part of that Beck inside you. Nothing. Zip. Zero percent. None of those impulses. Because if you hurt a hair on this Peter’s head…”

Tony didn’t have to finish the sentence. Beck knew Tony would kill him with his bare hands.

Beck looked Tony directly in the eye, and for the first time confidently said, “That’s not me. That’s not me. I loved the shit out of Peter and you know it.”

Tony slowly nodded and looked away, saying under his breath, “Yeah. I know.”

Both men got in their car and left, leaving Tony to numbly drag himself back into his house. Pepper was sitting on the couch in the family room, and turn to smile sweetly at him, getting up and walking towards her husband.

“We’ll tell Morgan tonight you’ll be gone for a while on a work related trip, okay?” She whispered, reaching up and wiping the flood of tears that began to pour down Tony’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof I was a little stuck on making this chapter as intense as I wanted, but I think next will be even rougher :') I hope you guys enjoyed


	5. 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, HUUUGE warning that there is graphic character death in this chapter. I'll be adding it tot he tags as well. Proceed with caution if that's something you'd like to avoid!

“Hey!! Oh, Holy cow, you would not believe what’s been going on-”

Peter bounced over to Tony, helping him to his feet on the battlefield against Thanos’ forces. Tony felt his body go numb, warmth spreading throughout his chest so fulfilling he could cry.

“Do you remember when we were in space? And I got all dusty? And- I must have passed out because I woke up and you were gone-” Tony stared at him in the most joyous shock he’d ever felt, unable to stop the stupid smile starting to form on his face. “But Doctor Strange was there, right, and he was like ‘it's been five years, come on, they need us’, and he started doing the yellow sparkly thingy he does all the time, and, what’re you doing-?”

Tony wrapped Peter tightly in his arms as Peter gave a small surprised gasp and sighed happily. Looking up to try and keep the tears from spilling, Tony burrowed deeper into the hug, clapping Peter firmly on the back. “This is nice.” Peter said, surprised, as he melted into the embrace and closed his eyes. They broke apart and turned when they heard someone yell “Peter!!”

Beck dropped out of the sky right in front of them on his green smoke, grabbing onto Peter and holding on for dear life. He broke away and grabbed firmly onto the sides of Peter’s face to look directly into his eyes and let out a small sob before clinging to the young man again.

“Thank God, you’re here, you’re fine,” Beck babbled and Peter returned the hug happily, still not really understanding what was going on. Beck buried his face into Peter’s hair, shoulders shaking, and Tony smiled with genuine happiness, remembering the hug he got to share with his father during the time heist.

They separated all too soon, the battle raging on around them. Catching up to Doctor Strange, Tony barked, “Hey! You said one out of fourteen million; we win, yeah? Tell me this is it.”

Stephen gazed back at him, unreadable, and replied, “If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.”

Tony nodded irritably before sighing and demanding, “You better be right.”

He missed Stephen staring back at him with an empty look.

Quickly, the exhilarating feeling turned to horror as Thanos reclaimed the stones, decimating everyone who tried to stop him. Cap, down. Thor, down. Danvers, down. Hulk, Mysterio, everyone, down. Tony, battle worn and bruised, desperately looked to Strange and asked him, silently. 

_ ‘If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen.’ _

Strange stared back miserably and slowly, slowly, pointed one finger up.

Realization hit Tony of what was to come. And he went for it.

He sprung on Thanos, grabbing the gauntlet, wrestling violently, trying to cover his movements to absorb the stones into the hand of his suit- 

Thanos sent a power surge through the gauntlet, throwing Tony back with explosive force, smashing him into a giant boulder a few yards away. His body hit so hard he almost blacked out before he crumpled to the ground. He looked up, dazed and hopeless, as Thanos cackled with his hand thrown up straight in the air and fingers spread, showing off the stones. One last flaunt, a bit more salt in the wound before he snapped them all away for good. Before Tony could even think whether to make another lunge or not, a web shot out and grabbed the gauntlet, sliding it off Thanos’ hand like it was oil off water. Tony’s head shot up to see Peter dangling from a flying Leviathan passing overhead, the gauntlet being zipped up towards him. Peter jumped off the bottom of the Leviathan to meet the gauntlet halfway through the sky. Tony grinned proudly when the gauntlet finally reached Peter’s grip, waiting to see if he would throw it to Thor, Mysertio, or Hulk again, or even back to him. 

Nothing in the world prepared him for the cold moment of terror seeing Peter slip the gauntlet on mid-air, the gauntlet's power surging through Peter and sizzling his arm as he screamed in agony, plummeting through the sky. Tony’s heart stopped and blood filled his ears, unable to hear everyone screaming for Peter to stop before he snapped, seconds before hitting the ground.

Everyone except Doctor Strange, who shamefully looked away. 

Tony sprinted to where Peter landed in a cold sweat, bursting through the clouds of enemies being dusted. Peter was motionless on his side and Tony rolled him over to reveal his side with the gauntlet; the gauntlet itself was blackened and charred, the burn snaking up Peter’s arm and across half his chest and abdomen, sneaking up that side of his neck and it danced along his cheek up to the corner of his eye, seeming to be burned closed. Peter stirred slightly, trying to gasp in for air but blood bubbling out of his mouth and nostrils. 

The whole world opened up and swallowed Tony as pure panic and misery burst through his veins, a shrill scream echoing in the back of his mind-

_ ‘Mr. Stark… I don’t feel so good…’ _

_ ‘I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t know, I don’t-’ _

_ ‘I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go, sir, please, please, I don’t wanna-’ _

Peter vomited blood onto himself, running down his jaw and neck. Tony cupped the unburnt side of Peter’s face as Peter slowly blinked his one unmarred eye open, seeming to be very far away.

“Kid, kid-” Tony wheezed in agony and Peter stiffened, noticing his idol was above him. Peter gave a tired smile, and rasped “Hey… Mr. Stark… we won.”

Quentin shot towards them on his clouds of smoke, trying to land but tripping over his feet and smashing into the ground before he clawed his way to Peter and hovered over him, sobbing, not knowing where to touch. Peter let out a long death rattle before noticing him, and he gave a faint smile again, struggling to swallow and whimpering, “Mr. Beck… I’m so glad…”

"D-don’t talk, bud,” Beck begged through his sobbing, wiping the blood away from Peter’s mouth with shaky hands in vain. “It’ll be fine, we’re gonna get you back on a ship with some first aid, and-”

Peter continued, unaware Quentin was speaking, “...so glad I got to be an Avenger… M-Mr. Stark… Mr. Beck, I’m so glad we won...”

Beck tried to scoop Peter up from underneath but only propped him up slightly when Peter gasped out in pain, choking violently on more blood. Beck tried to open his mouth to say something encouraging to Peter, to try and keep him alert and with them, but only deep sobs came out, like nothing Tony had ever heard in all the years of knowing him. 

“Peter, Pete, look at me,” Tony begged and Peter’s eyes flickered to him, becoming more distant by the second. “Do you remember when I told you everyone thought we were crazy for believing in you? For recruiting a kid? Just hang on a little longer. Please, just show them what we were talking about.”

Peter nodded just the tiniest bit, smiling into the distance, before that smile warped into a painful grimace and bubbled into a broken, sickly sob, tears flowing from his functional eye.

“I’m s-sorry.” Peter wheezed, sounding more like a plea as his face scrunched up in fear. “T-trying to… act like a real Avenger b-” He choked on more blood, Beck tilting Peter’s body and face towards his chest so it would spill out of Peter’s mouth and onto his Mysterio armor. “But I’m scared, sir.”

“Friday.” Tony said painfully, voice cracking. “What is Peter’s status.”

“Vital signs failing, Mr. Stark…” Friday replied, sounding stricken with grief herself. Tony nodded to himself, biting his lip and unable any longer to keep his tears at bay. He ran his hand through Peter’s hair gently, Peter’s foggy brown eyes flickering up to him, quickly losing consciousness. 

“You rest, okay Peter? We’ll wake you up when we’re back at the Avengers headquarters. Once you’re better, you’re gonna be a fulltime member of the team. I’m going to trust you with the big missions because… because I’m so damn proud of you.” Tony choked out, his voice breaking off to a whisper at the end. Peter’s body relaxed and he smiled absentmindedly, before letting a slow breath out, mouth moving to try and whimper out, “Proud?”. Tony and Beck waited, and waited, but another breath in never came.

_ ‘What if someone died tonight? Different story, right? Cause that’s on you. And if you died. I think that’s on me.’ _

Tony stood shakily and turned around as Beck hugged Peter’s body and sobbed violently, Pepper running past him to collapse in front of their Spider-Man, letting out wails that would plague his nightmares forever. Through blurry eyes he looked around and saw their team and friends all crying and horrified, until his eyes met Cap’s teary and bloodshot ones-

  
  


_ ‘We’ll loose.’ _

_ ‘And we’ll do that together too.’ _

Tony stumbled towards Steve in a stupor, quietly growling out, “You said we’d all lose together, Cap. Together.” Steve opened his mouth to say something before Tony’s fist cracked directly against his jaw, sending Captain American stumbling back into the dirt. Steve looked brokenly back up at him, desperate to deny this is what he wanted, when Tony screamed,  **“TOGETHER. SO WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU LOSE?!”**

Tony’s head snapped to look at Bucky yards behind them, not holding back his feral eyes full of hatred. Rhodey quickly grabbed onto the Iron Man suit’s arm, struggling to talk him down, “Tony, please, come on, let’s just-” Tony spun to meet Rhodey’s face and hysterically insisted, “It was supposed to be me, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, it was supposed to be me-”

No one celebrated their victory that night.

  
  


The funeral was held at the Stark lakeside cabin. May Parker graciously accepted the offer. As graciously as she could, being an inconsolable mess. It was more private and scenic than the city, and Tony paid for all the expenses without even asking May. Ned was the only school friend of Peter’s invited since he knew about Spider-Man’s identity. 

It was a beautiful, peaceful funeral, and it was still one of the worst days of any of the Avenger’s lives. After the ceremony, Tony scanned the attendees. Wanda and Natasha were by the lakeside, talking about Vision and Clint dying for the sake of the stones. Quentin stood in the shade of a willow tree looking empty and completely depleted. He had spent very little time sober since Peter died, other than today. May was crying into Pepper’s embrace, and Happy himself even broke down into sobs while trying to keep Morgan occupied as she didn’t understand what was happening. Finally, Tony’s eyes locked with Stephen Strange, tears flowly freely down the doctor’s face. If he had cared, Tony would have wondered if this felt like losing a patient.

Wordlessly, Tony walked around the house to the front yard, and Stephen followed. They stood side by side, looking off into the woods in the distance.

“You couldn’t tell me because then it wouldn’t have happened, huh?” Tony muttered under his breath. Stephen lightly bit his lip, nodding slightly, wracked with guilt. Tony sighed harshly through his nose before turning to face the other man, putting a strong hand on his shoulder. 

“It’s nothing personal, right, Strange?” Tony asked softly.

Stephen swallowed painfully and agreed, “Yeah, Stark. It’s nothing personal.”

Ten minutes later they walked back around the house to the lakeside, both disheveled and Stephen dripping blood from his nose and split lip. Nobody commented on it as Stephen’s eye slowly turned black with a bruise over the course of the next hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone was wondering, pretty much everyone at the canon funeral was there except for Tony-specific people (like Harley)


	6. 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter here but please read the notes at the end and leave a comment with your input!

They drove up slowly to the Avengers headquarters, mouths dropped in shock when they saw a giant hole missing in the side of the building. Jumping out of the car, Steve and Beck sprinted up the front steps and burst through the door to find an absolute mess inside. Furniture turned over, paintings fallen off the wall, vases broken. They heard footsteps advancing towards them when Doctor Strange appeared from the hallway, looking slightly bruised and battered.

“Oh, so nice of you two to join us again.” He said sarcastically. “While you were running errands, we were trying to wrangle a teenager with superhuman strength in the middle of an emotional breakdown. Did you know Peter can lift the Hulk and throw him through a wall like a rag doll? I just found out.”

Nearly speechless, Beck blabbered out, “Wh- how, why did- I thought he was safe with Barnes and Wilson when we left?” “He _was_ fine. And then another panic attack hit and he was convinced that he was right about this all being one of Mysterio’s illusions and tried to fight us off. Thank God you two didn’t take Wanda with you, or he might have kicked all our asses one by one.”

Steve sighed heavily and grasped his forehead, muttering, “I’m sorry, Strange, we just had to go let Tony-”

Stephen whipped around and hissed, “You WHAT?! You told Tony he was here?!” Steve straightened up, eyebrows knitted in confusion and said defensively, “Of course. Tony absolutely needs to know.”

Stephen scoffed and threw his hands up in disbelief, stuttering something indistinguishable out before saying, “Of course Tony needs to know- eventually. But this kid is textbook post-traumatic stress disorder, maybe some separate panic disorder, he’s hallucinating, he’s, he’s- Cap, you have to remember, I’m a real doctor. Now, mental health isn’t my area of expertise, but I can still diagnose when I see it. Peter is not stable- at all. And you’re going to throw Tony in here? Their meltdowns are going to be… catastrophic. And, shit, what if he thinks Tony’s a part of Mysterio’s illusion too?”

Steve’s mind raced at the realization, stammering out, “That’s- Peter wouldn’t, if he sees Tony I know…”

“Cap,” Strange said, a little softer but still firm, “Peter’s not ‘just in shock’. He’s not ‘just stressed’, or ‘just confused’ about all this. The kid is mentally unwell. He is in no state to see Stark right now, and I dare you to look me in the eye and say Stark seemed put together enough to see Peter.”

The two younger men shuffled under Strange’s gaze and Beck eventually asked, “How did- is everyone okay? Peter ok?” Strange let out a deep sigh and nodded, saying “Everyone got roughed up a bit. Wanda restrained him and I knocked him out. I put him in the medical wing, hooked up to a sedative. He’ll be out for a while.” Pivoting a hundred-eighty degrees to turn and look back at the room, Strange swirled his hands, the damage reversing and healing itself. At that moment Scott walked into the room, trying to hide his limp. “Hey, uh… the scary boss man is on hologram call. He said he wants a meeting.”

Within five minutes Steve, Beck, Scott, Nat, Wanda, Bruce, Strange, Sam, and Rhodey stood tense around the blueish projected image of Fury. Clicking his tongue with annoyance, Fury barked, “So. A multiverse now. A fresh Peter Parker dropped nicely in our laps, riddled with violent impulses. A cast of adults- I’m sorry, bumbling fools who are supposed to be adults, just as unstable as he is. And no one thought to run this by me?”

Rhodey huffed angrily and spat back, “Well, you know. After what happened, I apologize if we’ve been a little preoccupied seeing Peter again.”

Fury’s hologram turned slowly to face the War Machine, his face tight and eyes burning. Then, Fury let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Look, I get it. Fury, the crotchety old man. Heartless asshole, willing to go to unthinkable lengths to get the job done. The job no one else wants to do. No, it’s ok, I know, I know. It’s true. But you’ve all got me fucked up if you think I considered sending a sixteen year old kid to his death as a win.”

Rhodey’s eyes flickered away guiltily and everyone shrunk back a little. The silence hung in the air for another moment before Fury started back up, “Now. How are you all gonna handle the multiverse.”

Strange stepped forward and explained, “I have limited access to the multiverse; so far there are only certain ones I can open freely, and even fewer ones I can open under very certain conditions. To my knowledge, there are three types of universes. Filler, neutral, and alternate. Filler universes are fairly empty. Neutrals are universes that share our basic structure but function with completely different people, lives, histories, situations. And alternates are what they sound like; reflections of a common world, but potentially endlessly different. And I can’t rule out the possibility of a mixture of the latter two.”

“Let me guess.” Fury sighed out. “Peter’s from one that’s not too easy to get to.”

Strange swallowed tensely and said, “I believe Peter’s from one we’re not supposed to be able to access at all.” 

Fury grimaced and shook his head, muttering, “Welp. You all got a lot of work to do, figuring it out.”

The call ended with a beep. 

Beck made his way down to the condensed medical ward, pushing heatedly through the swinging doors and squinting in the sterile low light. Looking through the wide window of the first room he saw Peter limp in bed. Heart pounding, he rushed in and only then noticed Barnes sitting at the bedside chair, too low to see through the window. Bucky looked up at him, solemn, eyes flickering to the angry bruise around Beck’s throat. 

“You go talk to Stark?” He asked, and Beck nodded, “And Fury just now.” With a long sigh and then a grunt, Bucky stood, clapping a hand on Beck’s shoulder and giving a comforting squeeze before he limped out. 

Dread filling his stomach, Beck turned back to Peter and truly took the sight of him in. He was unconscious but definitely not resting. The teen looked pale, dark shallowness under his eyes and his forehead still tense. Beck quickly pulled the chair right up to the side of the bed until his knees were touching the side of the mattress. Hesitant to reach out, Beck shakily extended his hand until it ran through Peter’s hair and seized up when Peter unknowingly relaxed into the touch with a faint sigh.

Withdrawing his hand as if it burned, Beck gripped it to his chest and hung his head low, hunched over, trying to stifle his painful, panicked gasps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, two very important notes! So, my plan was to do a long chapter on Beck's backstory as well as elaborate more on his and Peter's relationship in this universe. But I was also suggested to publish it as it's own side story with more detail and personal narrative. Making it an included chapter would mean moving onto the rest of the story faster, but it'd be less detail and fluff. If I were to make it its own side story, I'd take about a week to write a couple chapters out and publish it all at once in it's own entry, so you wouldn't have to wait for multiple updates on that. Please let me know what you guys prefer!  
> And also, I made a twitter for MCU shitposting and screaming while facing writers block! you can find me @ TinkerTinkBun if you're interested


	7. UPDATE: Déjà Vu

Hi everyone!! I finished the very long fic of Quentin Beck's backstory in this universe and it is 100% completed and uploaded in it's entirety under the name Déjà Vu

You can find it on my profile, or here:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20066230/chapters/47523064

I highly suggest reading it before An Unexpected Guest continues further!! You can expect another chapter here later this week!

Thank you guys!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!! BIG REMINDER that you should go read my work on Beck's backstory!! It's where chapter 7 should have been (but it was just too much to make into just a chapter or two)  
> If you haven't checked it out already PLEEEASE read it ASAP, ESPECIALLY before the chapter 9 comes!! There will be references and foreshadowing that won't make sense without it  
> You can find it here  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/20066230/chapters/47523064

Bucky forced himself to walk normally and stretch his muscles through the limp. It had taken a while to calm Peter down once realization of Tony being alive in their universe had set in. Sam had talked about his work with soldiers occasionally, and one of the things he had mentioned was a physiological response to change in temperature that they used during panic attacks. Cold. Cold contact to the face and neck reminded the body of being submerged in water, the heart rate slows down as the body seizes up.

So he used his cold metal hand to run over Peter’s forehead, around his scalp, down his neck, back up, sending questioning glances to Sam to see if he was even helping, while Sam managed to convince Peter to go hands and knees on the ground.

Sam had been firm and confident, knowing this process like the back of his hand, but Bucky felt… apprehensive, like he was witnessing something intimate, something vulnerable that he shouldn’t have been. This was Stark’s boy, after all.

The crying, the noises, Bucky felt something restless stirring up inside him and he felt wound up still once Peter was coherent and his tears had dried up, the kid reduced to a red face and tight throat. Sam coaxed him into real clothes and a more secluded lounge area, lights slightly dimmer, promising to answer all of Peter’s questions once they got some food and hydration in him. 

Peter sat tensely in a chair farther away from them, and when Sam handed him a bottle of orange juice Peter wrang it nervously in his hands, pursing his lips, eyes darting around the room, before he sat it back on the table and mumbled a “no thanks”. “Oh no, that’s cool man, here, this is the good stuff.” Sam replied without missing a beat, pulling out a bottled lemonade from the fridge, taking a sip for himself and giving a refreshed sigh. “The Avengers get the fancy brand names, no Minute Maid here” as he handed it to Peter. When Peter slowly took the bottle and gave it a tentative sip, it clicked in Bucky’s mind. Sam did the same to the chips and pretzels he pulled out, making a nonchalant act of being the first to taste before Peter.

Bucky couldn’t say he blamed the kid for not trusting them.

It was over an hour of Peter sitting nervously in his chair, hands wringing harshly, jaw clenching and unclenching. Occasionally his breath would be shakier, but Sam acted as if he didn’t notice and forced Bucky into casual small talk the entire time, which ended up not being too difficult. Sam had a knack for joking around and playing it cool. 

Then, little by little, Peter piped into the conversation, immediately biting back with regret, but slowly adapting to their presence and letting his guard down. 

Back and forth, back and forth like this until before Bucky knew it, Sam had gotten Peter to talk briefly about Beck, growing tense and nervous again but his fight or flight mode had disengaged. As quickly as it had begun, Sam changed the topic to work Peter’s nerves back down and Bucky shot Steve a text. He didn’t need to be told where Steve and Beck had been headed, but they’d better know now before they came back to headquarters.

Bucky couldn’t deny he was impressed at Sam’s maneuvering of the teen’s unstable state, despite the fact that the Winter Soldier held his ever frequent poker face. Sam got Peter to agree to head over to one of the labs to meet with Banner and Strange and see if his body was reacting strangely to being thrust in this universe, even though they were sure the teen didn’t fully believe the situation yet. 

Something always goes wrong, though. Wouldn’t be a normal day in the life of an Avenger if it didn’t.

Walking past the main lobby in the front, Peter was looking around anxiously when he tripped over his own feet, catching himself but a pair of sunglasses flinging from his t-shirt pocket. Without giving it a thought, Bucky reached down-

An entire brawl burst out, Peter exploding and webbing Bucky’s human arm at the sight of him going for EDITH. The smashing of decor drew the other Avengers to the lobby and Peter, wild eyed and panic renewed, easily fought off each and every single one until Wanda appeared with Strange. Yelling with resistance, Peter was knocked out gently.

When Beck showed up in the medical room, Bucky made his way up to Steve’s office to find his Captain typing feverishly on a laptop. Steve’s eyes flickered up and he gave his friend a well rehearsed smile, quickly returning back to his work with a look of optimism.

“Calling in favors?” Bucky asked and Steve sighed a bit theatrically, confirming “Yes, getting in contact with Wakanda to see if they have any insight on this multiple universe tech.”

Bucky slowly paced the room, looking out into the darkness of night through the window before pulling up a chair to the other side of Steve’s desk. “You think I should go back there?”

“Go back? To Wakanda? No, why would you go back? Unless.. If you want to, then-” Steve paused when Bucky shrugged and said, “You talked to Stark. He’s coming back, isn’t he?”

Steve opened his mouth but had to think for a minute before asserting, “Tony’s retired. He left the Avengers, he doesn’t have a say in who stays here. He’s welcome to come but… he doesn’t get to call the shots and order your departure. This is your place too, Buck.”

Bucky nodded, not sure if he believed it, but he let silence sit between them for a while as Steve kept typing away.

“Didn’t expect this one. With the kid, ya know.” Bucky eventually sighed, trying to keep his voice nonchalant. Without looking up, Steve nodded on cue and said, “It’s tough. This is a tough one. But we gotta do what’s best for Peter.”

If Steve didn’t miss the piercing gaze Bucky was giving him, he was doing a damn good job at pretending he didn’t notice it.

“Steve.”

Steve paused, turning his head and eyes meeting Bucky’s hard ones. 

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Steve was wordless for a minute before he clicked his tongue sympathetically and said, “I know Buck, and that’s the hardest part. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” He held a small smile for a moment staring at Bucky before he want back to typing.

“Steve.” Bucky insisted, and Cap paused again, this time keeping his head down low and only moving his eyes towards his friend. 

“It wasn’t your fault.” Bucky said firmer. 

Steve stared at him coldly for a minute, unmoving, before he said lowly, “I’m not doing this right now, Bucky. We’re not doing this right now.”

Slowly, tensely, Bucky leaned in toward the desk and repeated heatedly, punching out each word slowly, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Slamming the top of the laptop down harder than he meant, Cap shot up angrily from his chair and mumbling under his breath as he made his way towards the door, “I told you not to start this with me, Bucky, I said-” but Bucky caught his forearm and Steve had to hold himself back from ripping it out of his friend’s grasp. “When are you going to stop punishing yourself for things you couldn’t control?” Bucky growled. “It’s been using up an awful lot of the stupid round here.”

Steve turned to face him, jaw clenched and lips tight. He held back for a moment, arranging his words into something he wouldn’t regret, before forcing out, “I don’t want to talk about it, Bucky.”

Bucky gave a dry chuckle, giving an irritated head shake before biting back, “So you’re never going to talk about anything, and it all goes away. How’s that worked out for you? With everything?”

Eyes locked, something painful billowed behind Steve’s, eyebrows knitting painfully, before he turned away and swallowed it all back down. Bucky didn’t stop him as he pushed past, but before Steve could make it out the door, he gave one last, “Steve.”

Steve stood for just a moment, not looking back, staying to hear Bucky’s final quip out of obligation.

“Stop putting it all on yourself. Everyone else thinks it should have been them instead, too.”

There was no response, no sound, no change in Steve’s face or body. He took it in without reaction, and swiftly walked out the door. 

  
  
  


Head shooting up, Beck gasped and almost fell out of his chair. Whipping around, he sighed when he realized the noise was Strange opening the door to the room. Beck groaned and rubbed his eyes with a hand, the other hand clenched tightly on his knee, trying to guess how long he’d fallen asleep for at Peter’s bedside.

“Peter’s sedative is done.” Stephen said cooly, eyes pointing towards the deflated IV bag. “Thanks to his enhancements, I’m pretty sure the effects will wear off and he’ll be conscious soon. I’m sure you know what that means.”

Beck nodded numbly. He definitely couldn’t be the one there when Peter woke up. 

Body like lead, he struggled to make himself stand up at Peter’s bedside and walk away. Facing the door, he looked back nervously at Peter and accidently made eye contact with Strange. Beck was given a small, reassuring nod from the normally aloof doctor, and that helped lighten the weight in his legs enough to leave.

Stephen turned towards the countertop computer and read over Peter’s medical file; well, the one they had from their universe’s Peter, while his cape reach over and unhooked the sedative bag from the IV, reaching into a cupboard and pulling out a normal IV bag for hydration and hooking that up to the teen. Within ten minutes, Peter was gently stirring and shifting in the bed, coming out of the dark clouds of unconsciousness with small noises of discomfort. Heart rate was still near resting; the kid was still going to be groggy and disoriented for a while. 

Bleary eyes cracking open, Peter mumbled something unintelligible and Strange left the screen, turning to face his patient. The boy had a tired, confused face, blinking slowly and looking around before noticing the older man standing above him. “You’re on an IV right now to prevent dehydration, don’t rip it out. On a scale of one to ten, rate any pain or discomfort you have for me.” Peter nodded numbly, still not really ‘there’, and murmured, “I think.. four, I think…?”

Stephen asked him a few more questions, gently touched and examined his body physically as Peter came back into himself, mentally and physically sluggish, anxiety and panic dormant for now. He watched Dr. Strange’s hands, eyebrows knitting at the sight of all the deep, raised scars and how they trembled only slightly.

“You’re a real doctor, right?” Peter slurred, remembering someone mentioning it during small talk at Mr. Stark’s funeral. Strange hesitated for a moment.

“I had a career change.” He said simply, and Peter gave a slow, tired nod. Strange worked in silence for a few more moments before Peter croaked out quietly, “Was it hard?”

“Is what hard?” Strange said deadpan, used to the ooos and ahhs over being a world renowned surgeon.

“Was it hard knowing I was going to die and still having to act like everything was going to be fine?”

And ice cold fist clenched over his chest and Stephen froze in place. He tilted his head to look at Peter, only to see the teen was laid back slack, eyes closed, exhausted from the residual effects of the sedation on top of the craziness of the day. Wetting his lips, Stephen went back to work and said distantly, “It was hard.”

Peter hummed gently and prodded further, “Is it always hard?”

Eyebrows crinkling lightly, Stephen made sure he didn’t break concentration and his hands didn’t falter with their examining. “What do you mean ‘always’?”

Peter shrugged in bed and said drunkenly, “I dunno. I figured… you ever had patients you knew were gonna die? But you had to keep operating on them until the end? Because their families still hoped that… it would work out. But you just knew?”

Stephen paused, mouth going dry. Before he could unscramble his thoughts enough to think of a reply, Peter mumbled again, “I dunno, it’s stupid, never mind. I just… maybe it was hard for my Doctor Strange knowing Mr. Stark was gonna be the one, too.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok casual note, I'm actually a huge IronStrange shipper but this fic will NOT have any of that (only canon relationships)  
> I just couldn't resist a lil.. soft moment of Stephen having to know Tony was going to die and it absolutely sucking


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad I was able to get this next chapter out so soon! tbh I've been feeling really self conscious about this story and wondering if I should just delete it and pretend it never happened. But I've gotten some really nice comments on it, so I hope you guys will continue to enjoy!

Surreal.

Peter felt outside of his body as he looked around his bedroom in the Avengers facility. What was supposed to be his bedroom. Or maybe this universe's Peter really did…

Pain stabbed in his stomach as he screamed 'stupid' to himself. He couldn't figure it out, he just couldn't believe…

Aliens and Gods were real. He had fought in an intergalactic war, alongside magic and against monsters. Were multiple universes really that much of a stretch? And EDITH said there were no illusions… everyone here was as much flesh and blood as he was… Beck… his universe's Beck, it could have just been a coinciden-

'But what if?'

Peter gripped his shirt at the chest harshly, hunched over and failing to steady his rapid breathing. He swayed in the room, having been led back here by Doctor Strange after the IV fluids ran its course and he was unhooked from all the medical devices. Peter had been offered some pain killers or gentle sleeping pills for his anxiety, though Doctor Strange didn't directly say that, but he refused. It's true he couldn't fall asleep regularly, too anxious of what would happen or what he could dream of. But he couldn't, he just couldn't take anything just in case. Because what if, what if, what if.

Heart pounding, he went back and forth again, it could be a trap from Beck to get EDITH again, but would he know the Avengers this well? What if he had allies within Stark Industries that would have access to information on the heros, but even then how did he know the situation with Thanos so well? Beck was here, in front of him like a taunt, but would he really conjure up something so convoluted? Or is that what he wanted Peter to think? That it was so crazy it had to be true? 

Limbs numb with adrenaline, Peter spiraled deeper into the grasp of panic, couldn't believe any of this, couldn't trust anyone- 

EDITH. He looked over to the sunglasses sitting safely on the bed, snatching them up and putting then on as she lit to life.

"Hello Peter." She said calmly and cheerfully. Peter let out a shaky breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Hey EDITH. Can you… can you scan again to check for any illusions? Or tracking? Or interference, or… anything really?"

"I am connected securely to the Stark Industries system, and have cleared this entire building for deceptive oddities. Would you like me to engage some drones for protective measurements?" Peter shook his head but a lightbulb went off in his mind.

"You're connected to…  _ this _ Stark Industries network, right? Is there…" His throat tightened. "Can you figure out where Mr. Stark is? Do you have access to his personal data?" 

EDITH computed for just a second before responding, "Tony Stark departed from his family home and traveled to the Stark Tower in New York City earlier this evening."

It was already in the early hours of the morning, still dark but sunrise was soon. Mind racing, he buzzed with anxiety and wondered if everyone was asleep. Did Cap get up early to workout? Did Dr. Banner or Mr. Lang spend late nights in the labs and would they still be awake? Was he being monitored regardless, an alarm ringing if he left his room? Would-

"Peter." The voice broke his trance. "I detect a rising heart rate and believe you will soon begin hyperventilating if you don't calm down."

"It's fine, EDITH, thanks. Is- is there anyway you could set me up with some, um, transportation?" Peter held his breath, aware it was a long shot. To his utter shock, EDITH replied, "There's a small Stark aircraft with an autopilot feature on premise. Would you like me to-"

"That's, that's perfect EDITH, yes, do whatever… whatever you have to do to get it ready. As soon as possible." He whispered back heatedly before taking the sunglasses off and striding to his connected bathroom, hands shaking.

Stark Tower. He could find Tony at Stark Tower at morning. The floor felt like it was melting under Peter as he leaned on the ledge of the sink to hold himself up, heart beating like a caged rabbit. The tingle of more adrenaline ran up his spine, legs weakening. 

But what if-

No, he had to see Mr. Stark for himself. If he was there, really there, that meant-

'Your Mr. Stark will still be dead' came a reminder from the deep, dark part of his mind and his throat clenched up, eyes burning. Grasping the sides of the sink, slowly lowering himself, Peter fell into a crouch on the floor, face in his knees as he bit back sobs. 

I need to know, I just need to know, he told himself, what should have happened, how things could have been if Mr. Stark survived and they got to fight together more and he got to become a  _ real _ Avenger, and, and- 

_ 'Maybe if you were good enough, Tony might still be alive' _

Peter bit down on his hand to stifle the cries, he couldn't break down, not now, not when he had a plan, but Beck's words echoed in his mind like clockwork. 

He needed to walk, to run, to swing through the city and let this tidal wave of feeling burst out of him, scream, but he couldn't move until the right time. 

He pulled his heavy body back up and gasped into the sink bowl before slowly raising his head to look into the mirror, met with bloodshot, sunken eyes, and a flushed face wet with tears. He cursed at himself for looking so stupid, being such a baby, and he angrily wiped his tears away. It only caused him to cry harder.

Crumbling to the floor his mind raced with 'what if this goes wrong' and 'what will I say' and 'what if he doesn't even care in this universe' he crawled to the edge of the bathtub and released a flood of frigid water, splashing his face sloppily as he shuddered. Gasping for air, he thought back to a month ago in Mysterio's clutches.

_ 'You're all alone. Your friends are in trouble. What are you going to do about it?' _

Breaths evening out, Peter let himself soak up the cold mist for another minute remembering Happy's words. 

He pushed himself up, face set in decision. Slipping with ease into his spider suit, he threw on a baggy hoodie and pair of pajama pants he found in the closet on top of it. Peter turned all the lights off and instructed EDITH to disable any sort of notification or alarm system that would alert the Avengers he was leaving. He climbed up to the ceiling, and exited out the bedroom door that way, crawling as flat against the ceiling as he could down all the hallways. He silently dropped to the floor infront of the door leading to the massive garage, sneaking in. The lights flickered on, one by one. Walking down the concrete, he past motorcycles, cars, tactical vehicles, and finally came to a few aircrafts. There were smaller jets, and then crafts leading up to the size of the one Happy flew to save his ass from Mysterio. Creeping around them, he finally found the one EDITH suggest by serial number; maybe ¾ the size of Happy’s but it looked sleek, new, untouched, and Peter lifted his gloved hand to touch the cool metal.

“Can’t sleep?”

Hand tearing back like he touched fire, Peter whipped around to see Bucky in the doorway he had entered from, staring at him cooly. His mind raced for a moment… judging by the angle, Bucky definitely saw his arm extended, but not his actual hands. He shook the sleeves slightly to make sure they’d fall and cover the view of his spider suit gloves.

“No,” Peter finally choked back, “I usually… I mean, no, Mr. Barnes, I don’t sleep great.”

Bucky nodded knowingly, sauntering towards Peter. “It’s Bucky, Queens. I don’t go by Mr. Barnes.”

Peter blinked in surprise and said, “Oh, I um, sorry Mr. Bucky.”

That got a ghost of a smile out of the older man and he insisted, “No, just Bucky.” Peter shifted backwards a millimeter. They fought together against Thanos… he remembered Bucky at the funeral for Mr. Stark too. But the incident in Germany… Bucky was a bad guy, wasn’t he? That’s what Mr. Stark told him. Or did Peter miss the redemption arc?

Sensing the teen’s uneasiness, Bucky asked, “You trying to get some fresh air?” Before clicking the button that opened the huge garage door. Peter flinched at the noise, panicking that it would wake more people up, but Bucky wandered out into the warm darkness of the summer night.

And hesitantly, Peter followed.

Bucky staring up at the sky, lit with stars only visible due to the lack of light pollution here in upstate New York, so Peter also looked up. They stood emptily for a few minutes until Peter felt suffocated by akwardness.

“M-, uh, Bucky?” He asked, and Bucky hummed back to Peter to continue. “About Germany… I thought you were a bad guy? I mean that’s what.. They said.” Bucky didn’t respond immediately, sighing heavily through his nose. “I was.” He finally responded and Peter shuffled nervously, still hiding his suited hands. 

“What did... I mean, if I can ask, I totally get if- you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, if-” Peter lost his words, suddenly self conscious about how personal his question had come out. Bucky just nodded to himself, licking his dry lips but not looking towards Peter still.

“I killed a lot of people.”

A shiver went down Peter’s spine; he was a bad guy. But he didn’t act like…

“Why did you do it?” Peter asked without thinking and immediately bit his lip to stop himself, but it was too late. His eyes flickered at the older man, feeling mortified and he sputtered, “I’m sorry you know what, don’t, don’t worry about it, I’m just gonna go and, um-”

“Its, uh, okay.” Bucky said heavily, obviously weighing his words before saying them. He seemed to flounder for a minute before saying, “I was captured by the enemy and they… wiped my mind. And that’s what they had me do. Until the Avengers got me back.”

Peter gasped and said, “Like Men in Black?!” Bucky’s head whipped towards the teen, eyes a little wide, not expecting that reaction. “I don’t know what that is-” Bucky replied, and Peter continued, “Ok, more like A Clockwork Orange?!” Bucky shook his head and Peter insisted, “Have you seen Zoolander?!”

“I don’t watch a lot of movies.” Bucky said sheepishly, but he grinned a little at Peter loosening up. Peter sighed, a little more lighthearted and looked up at the sky. “I’m glad, though.” He said absentmindedly and Bucky’s eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean?” He asked cautiously and Peter replied confidently, “Because that means it wasn’t your fault.”

Although he didn’t react outwardly, something pinched in Bucky’s chest. Maybe this was payback for ambushing Steve earlier. “You guys let Mr. Stark know, right? It’s nice we can be on the same team now.” Peter thought outloud and Bucky gave a small, sad smile to no one. They soaked up the warm, breezy air for a few more minutes before Bucky asked, “Feeling better?” The sunrise was starting to peak, causing the sky to go from black to a dusty blue and orange line at the horizon. Peter nodded back, hands tucked away in his hoodie pocket and Bucky said, “Good. Let’s head inside, Queens.”

They walked back into the garage and Bucky headed towards the door into the house. He got halfway there when he noticed Peter wasn’t following him, but standing still near the garage opening. “Queens?” He asked, and Peter shuffled, saying, “Mr. Barnes, Bucky, it’s been nice… hanging out with you a little while I’ve been here. If you can call it that. But I got stuff to do so don’t take this personally cause-”

Bucky threw himself into a barrel roll on the ground, barely missing a web shoot out towards him and splatting on the garage wall. Peter stood, arm extended, fingers in shooting position as he continued, “cause it’s not personal. The new HQ is really cool and it’s great everyone’s been chilling out here, well I couldn’t really enjoy it, but,” As Peter spoke he fired web after web at Bucky, who slid over cars, darting between motorcycles, slipping into the darkness of the vehicle's shadows. “I gotta head out.”

Bucky watched from his crouched hiding spot as Peter started walking up and down the cars, looking for him. He threw his voice, louder than necessary, “Stop messing around, Queens. Time for bed.”

“I’m not tired.” Peter replied firmly. “I’ll be real careful when I knock you out then, how about that?” Bucky quipped back, hiding the apprehension in his voice. Physically, he was no match for this kid. Not that his weapons would have helped in this situation, wasn’t like he was going to shoot him down. And the button to close the garage was right next to the door leading inside; Bucky wouldn’t have made it halfway towards it before the kid cocooned him. He put his hand on the ground to steady himself when Peter perked up, shooting directly under the car and Bucky scrambled to dodge. Note to self, kid has super hearing to boot with super strength.

Make a scene it was, then. All the Avengers would come running at the sound of an escapee brawl. Pivoting and running towards a line of motorcycles, Bucky braced himself to bodyslam them over when he skidded to a halt, Peter shooting a web out and knitting them together. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Barnes, Bucky, but I’m seriously on a tight schedule right now, if you could just,”

Peter gasped as Bucky sprinted towards him, brandishing a gun from a hidden holster. Out of shock more than anything, he momentarily faltered and tripped over his feet, only for Bucky to fake him out. Throwing the gun away at the last moment, Bucky tackled the teen to the ground and wrestled him into a sleeper hold with his metal arm, locking the mechanics in place, on top of him pinning Peter down so his arms were trapped between the ground and his own chest. Peter let out a choked noises between a cough and a grunt, Bucky trying to buy just half a minute to figure out how to take the superhuman down as Peter’s feet kicked for purchase against the floor. Peter thrashed, rising to his knees and clawing at Bucky’s metal arm with no give. It wasn’t until he stumbled to his feet, muscles pumping with superhuman strength, causing Bucky’s metal arm to creak under pressure, that he threw the man off. Bucky fell and skidded a couple feet away, immediately picking himself up but his head whipped back as it made contact with something.

He almost reached up to his mouth when he realized it was webbed closed like duct tape. His eyes flickered up to Peter’s firey gaze. Bucky stood straight up, making himself larger. He cracked his shoulder blades and in response, Peter pulled his mask on. Bucky clenched his fist and the mechanics whirred, a metal shield sprouting from his forearm.

“Sick! That’s so cool!” Peter whispered to himself and he shot five webs rapid fire, all hitting Bucky’s shield as the man charged him. Peter’s eyes widened when the webbed shield popped off Bucky’s arm cleanly as the man threw it toward the spider. Peter ducked and it whizzed past him before he gasped and whipped around, grabbing the shield with another strand of web before it hit the wall, aimed perfectly to hit the button to close the garage. Grabbing onto the web, Peter spun in a circle, bringing the shield with him. Bucky’s eyes widened, no time to react as the string of web hit him and the momentum caused the rest of the webbing connected to the shield to whirr around him, wrapping him up. Arms and torso bound, Bucky staggered and ran towards the teen but Peter easily knocked him over with a shot to the legs and the man fell to the ground, his legs immobile.

Spider-Man sheepishly walked up to the older man and sprayed him with more webbing, this time connecting him to the floor so he couldn’t crawl back inside the facility. “I’m sorry. I hope you don’t hate me too much.” Peter said sympathetically, before ripping the mask back off and putting on EDITH. Across the garage, a ship’s door automatically opened. Bucky thrashed as much as he could against the binds as the ship sprung to life and rolled slowly out of the garage and into the darkness, not lifting into the air until it was far enough down the runway to be less noticeable. 

Bucky fought against his binds with little give until he was drenched with sweat, breathing harshly through his nose. It wasn’t until well into sunrise that Scott stumbled upon him with a, “Oh shit!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think you all know what's coming next chapter *wink*


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh all this Tom Holland/Spider-Man stuff with Disney and Sony has me actually fucked up and feeling really bad, I was already mostly finished with this chapter but I'm feeling some angst next chapter maybe? I'm in pain

"Peter."

He jolted at the voice, looking up at the interior of the aircraft. He had been sitting on the floor with his back up against a wall, hugging his legs, face flushed in his knees.

"May I suggest landing on the outskirts of town? The Stark tower seems to have strict protocols on crafts arriving in. We would most likely cause alarm." EDITH said from the stereos, hooked up to the ship's system. Peter nodded before realizing he didn't know if there were interior cameras for EDITH to see his movement. "Yeah that's…. Do that, thanks."

It had been a long flight (it really hadn't, the logical part of Peter's brain thought, it only felt like hours because of the constant flow of panic and adrenaline through his bloodstream, cycling through phases of anxiety). Realization dawned as Peter asked nervously, "EDITH, is there… is the record of Spider-Man's death public?" "It is, Peter. I can see many news reports on Spider-Man's death after the blip."

Peter bit his thumbnail through his suit, mind racing as to how to conceal his identity. If everyone knew Spider-Man was dead in this reality, he couldn't exactly swing on over to Stark Industries looking like this. Catching on, EDITH followed up, "Would you like to implement cloaking protocols?" Blinking in surprise, the teen echoed back, "Cloaking? I can do that?"

EDITH walked him through how to hook her up directly to his suit's hardwiring and watched as the red fabric faded, stretching his hands out to watch in awe as she manipulated the colouring tech. The suit turned a solid ebony, his raised webbing details only a slightly wetter midnight black. The spider emblem still glinted proudly on his chest and he touched the metallic gently, deciding the whole suit was dark enough for it to not be noticeable. He grinned under his mask, internally pumping his fist at the cool new discovery when he suddenly let his shoulders drop and let out a long groan, realizing-

"I'm just Night Monkey 2.0!!"

"There seems to be no reports of a Night Monkey in this universe, Peter, so you would be considered the original." EDITH replied cheerfully and Peter gave the pair of sunglasses a deadpan stare.

They landed in a field behind a park, Peter slipping a flat EDITH into an armored pocket while she remained hooked up to his suit's system. The sun had just finished rising, it was warm and breezy and quiet. Peter took in a long, deep breath of fresh air, his limbs tingling with nervousness before he jumped right into the familiar motion of swinging from building to building. 

This he remembered. The blood flowing through his limbs, muscles pumping, fresh air whipping around his slick suit.  _ This _ is what he was supposed to be doing; not cooped up in hiding, or sitting around the so-called ‘Avengers’ base with Beck lurking around. It was times like this that Peter remembered proudly that there was no real separation between himself and Spider-Man; he’d wear the suit until his very last breath.

It was perfect timing then that Peter heard an explosion, gripping harshly onto the side of a building and coming to a rough halt. Screams, the sound of people running, and some sort of feral screeching is all it takes for Peter to make up his mind. He shoots a longing glance in the direction of where Stark tower would be, and then takes off in the direction of chaos

  
  


After Steve and Beck’s departure, Tony wandered down to the small basement lab he hadn’t used since the time heist. And by wandered, he actually stumbled into it, chest tight and head pounding, breath harder and harder to take in, grabbing a counter with shaky hands.

_ Peter. _

FRIDAY attempted to walk him through his panic attack but Tony spat out a forceful mute, plunging him into silence.

There was a desperate sting inside that wrapped around him like water, drowning him in the feeling of ‘I have to see him, I have to touch him to know he’s here and he’s real, I have to know-’ but a small darkness spread through the pits of his stomach like a fog. It was a feeling Tony had been well acquainted to; Shame. Guilt. Fear. It was on him. Peter’s death, whichever way it could have happened, would have always been on him. From the moment Tony enlisted the teen, got him fucked up and involved with their avenger’s bullshit, he had sentenced Peter to death.

These last few months he had willed himself to completely stop thinking of Peter, at least while conscious. He couldn’t really control nightmares, just stave them off with sleep aids with a side effect of dreamless nights. Every mental image he’d ever had since that day of Peter smiling up at Pepper, bounding through the streets on his webs, tinkering around a lab with Beck, was met with ten more of Peter’s lifeless, bloodied, and singed corpse on the battlefield, in the casket, all he could see was was a sobbing Peter giving away to dust blowing through the wind, or Peter nearly drowning in the lake because of Toomes, or-

“Tony?”

Lifting his head up shakily (when did he get on the ground? On all fours, forehead to the cold floor, Pepper’s hand on his back) he looks up at her, sweat misting over his paled face. She gives him her charming, gentle smile that only she can do as she runs her hands through his hair. She coaxes him- no, actually, just instructs him, to have Happy come pick him up tonight and spend the night at Stark Industries so he can take a look at the recovered pair of EDITH glasses from the HYDRA lab. He nods numbly, not present enough to realize it’s just a distraction and an excuse to get him out of the house before he develops cold feet against seeing the teen.

So he packs, tucks Morgan into bed and presses an especially long kiss to her forehead before whispering, “Be good for mom or ice cream is banned forever. Love you 3,000.” Pepper is waiting at the door, her ever present coy smile ghosting her face. She wraps him up in her arms and he melts into it with a rare moment of complete vulnerability.

“How can I even look at him, Pep.” He mumbles under his breath and she sighs softly into the crook of his neck, pulling back and cupping his jawline with one hand. His eyes flicker from the floor up to hers, his exhausted and nearly empty. “Am I being punished?” He chokes out hoarsely and Pepper’s eyebrows knit together. “How are you being punished?” She prodded gently. His eyes search hers for a moment, looking back and forth just a millimeter before he says breathlessly, “I wanted to forget him. I wanted to lock it up in a box and bury it in the bottom of the lake. I wanted to never think about him ever again. I’m a coward, so someone sent him to haunt me.”

Her eyes softened and she bit her lip, giving Tony’s cheek a light stroke with her thumb. Then she smiled sadly and demanded, “Now tell me what you’re really thinking about seeing Peter.”

His opened his mouth, throat too tight for a moment, face flushing and he instead clenched his jaw closed. After a shaky breath he looked back down and said, “I don’t deserve to see him.”

A hand on his jaw forced him to face back up to her, his wife slightly tilting her head and smiling sympathetically. “I’ve known you too long, Tony. I’m not going to waste time trying to convince you that you deserve to see him. But I will tell you,” she said, brushing his hair off his forehead, “He deserves to see you. Give him that.”

And so Tony was standing in the old personal lobby of the Avenger’s, looking out the window at the New York City skyline at the recently risen sun when FRIDAY called out to the room. 

“Sir? There seems to be a disturbance downtown. Non-human creatures have stormed a neighborhood.”

Tony contemplates in silence and says sharply, “Whelp, better hope the Avengers get here quick, considering I’ve retired and all.”

“Sir.” FRIDAY say with a warning edge. 

Which leads Tony wondering how the hell did this sleepless night turn into him flying across the city in his Iron Man suit, equipped for the first time since Thanos.

The situation became fairly transparent quick. Some old quack was experimenting in what should have been an abandoned building, creating a ragtag team of beefed up, grotesque monsters out of genetically mutated animals. He releases them into the streets with no plan other than to have them destroy shit, he thinks he’ll rule the city, yada yada yada.

But, damn, these science projects are  _ huge _ . Bigger than a Challenger II tank, Tony almost retches as he blasts a mole creature out of the way. They’re pretty strong too, whatever ‘roided up juice that guy had been giving them. Nothing too powerful, but troublesome because there were more than Tony expected, running around out here destroying buildings and grabbing cars and buses in their mouths, flinging them into buildings. He’s starting to prickle with irritation as he plows the creatures down, more and more appearing as he’s a few blocks closer to the source. He feels the jolt in the air as there’s another small explosion and he can see the abandoned building go up in flames in the distance. 

“Alright, Rats of Nimh, the exterminator needs this to hurry on up.” Tony growled as his palm lasers sliced straight through a couple of overgrown rodents, dodging some of the falling debris from the buildings the animals were body slamming into. He’s finally made his way to the street of the burning faux-lab when he starts to seriously wonder if the other Avengers will appear with backup. He’s in the moment of contemplating calling out his other Iron Man suits when he sees something fling past him; a lizard creature screaming and flying through the air before hitting the ground, unmoving.

Tony turns around to face towards the firey wreckage when his blood runs cold.

There’s a figure dressed in all black punching down monsters, back to Tony but he can tell from the silhouette that they’re a little shorter than him, broad shoulders and wide arms with slim hips and athletic legs. Muscular, but still lithe.

His body goes numb as the jets in Tony’s suit switch off, the older man stumbling to the ground breathlessly, heart beating like a bear in a claw trap as memories, memories he had tried to suppress flashed before his eyes, subconsciously trying to match up the body shape. The mask of his iron suit lifted away, revealing his face, and Tony shakily lifted the red and gold gloved hands up towards to cup around his mouth.   
  
“Underoos!” Tony called out, a desperate edge he hadn’t meant to expose, time slowing down. The dark figure punched down another creature and turned around to face him from so many yards away, but Tony could see the figure’s body go slack in shock before tensing up, lenses of the suit’s eyes widening. Something stabbed deep in his throat as it closed up and he knew, Tony knew-

“MR. ST-”

From the jaws of another monster, a double decker bus flung through the air, smashing directly into the dark figure and breaking through the wall of the burning building, both disappearing inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOOOOO I've already worked on the next chapter and I might upload it within like... 24 hours? If that gives people enough time to read this one. Please leave comments so I know you guys are still out there and I'm not jumping the gun with posting chapter 11 so soon!


	11. Chapter 11

“We underestimated him.” Steve huffed as Wanda’s red static pulled the webs off of Bucky, helping his friend up to his feet. Beck gritted his teeth and said guiltily, “Should’ve known better. Peter’s got guts, no matter the universe. Did he say where he was going?”

“No but he didn’t need to, he’s going to Stark, isn’t he?” Bucky replied, dusting himself off. “Anyone know where Tony is? And would Peter even know where to look for him here?” Sam followed up and there was muttering between the group of Avengers before Stephen said, “I can open a portal directly to him but I need an anchor. A strand of his hair preferably... I could use the blood sample I took yesterday evening but it might have been thrown out already.” “Hey,” barked from the doorway. Nat stood there, suited up as everyone turned to her. “News report. Some attack’s going on in the city. Who wants to bet we’ll find the kid there?”

“I can take us straight to the New York Sanctum.” Stephen cut in.

“Five minutes.” Cap commanded, “Bruce, Strange, Sam, Bucky, Nat. You’re coming with me. Everyone else, hold down the fort.” Beck whipped around, and said quickly, “Let me come too, I-” “Beck,” Captain said sympathetically, “With the way Peter is right now, I don’t think-” 

“I’ll hang back,” Beck insisted, “Lay low once we find him, outta sight.” Steve face flashed with thought, rolling the idea around in his mind before he sighed and said firmly, “If Peter sees you hiding out in the background, it’ll just confirm his suspicions. We can’t risk it. I’m sorry.”

The rejection stung Beck, but he couldn't call it harsh because he knew it was true. Just his presence was an explosion waiting to happen.

He watched as the sub-group disappeared through Strange's portal and the rest of the Avengers filed out of the garage, starting their respective days. Beck lingered, fists tight with frustration. He was so stupid, so God damn stupid. He should have been shadowing Peter last night, but instead he was a pitiful mess, turning in early to lay despondent in bed while he faded in and out of sleep. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

His restlessness over the situation eventually required him to move, and he found himself in the main kitchen, Scott standing over the coffee maker and turning when he heard the other man come in.

"Hey Q," Scott called to him, cheerful but smile a little sympathetic. "Made some coffee, not that we need to go from 'mildly concerned' to 'borderline heart attack' after our already eventful morning, but, ya know. Crime fighting doesn't leave nap breaks."

Beck did crack a small smile at that. Scott was fun. "I'll take a mug." Beck nodded, grabbing one from the cabinet and sipping alongside Scott for a few minutes while they talked multiverse theories. Beck gave a performative smile when Scott finished his coffee and left to get a head start in the lab downstairs, the super powered man plunged back into his isolated thoughts.

He looked down at his half empty mug and a weary Beck stared back at him in the muddy reflection. Mouth suddenly  _ too _ dry, Beck swallowed thickly, looking around the eerily quiet kitchen area, harsh sun casting unforgiving shadows across the room. Unintentionally, Beck's eyes made contact with the shut liquor cabinet and a flush of desire soaked him to his core.

His head snapped away, mortified, and he chanted to himself, 'Nope, no, no, they'll be back soon, they'll be back with Peter-' but there was a taunt pain under his jaw, God, when did the room get so stuffy?

Walk away, walk away, walk away, but Beck got halfway out of the room when he circled back, tightly gripping his coffee mug, walking up to the cabinet before pivoting and tearing himself away, pacing until he was standing still in the middle of the room. Listening. Was anyone else close enough to walk in on him?

Just a bit for his coffee. He never liked it black anyways. Just a sip to take the edge off, calm his nerves.

Shaky hands pulled out a strong cream liqueur, the imported expensive brews that were befitting of a Stark Industries funded building, and Beck poured a little too fast, almost causing the cup to overflow. The sour stench soaked deep into his lungs and Beck's stomach flipped with nausea and desperation. 

The burn was harsh on his throat and cool in his shaky limbs, pooling sickeningly sweet in the pit of his stomach. The drink was refreshing. And so was the one after that. And the one after that. 

As fast as it had happened, Beck stumbled to put the bottle back, alcohol not yet setting in but his body on autopilot. Kitchen to bedroom. Bedroom to bathroom. Bathroom medicine cabinet. The aspirin bottle didn't rattle. Empty.

Beck stared into the crisp white sink bowl, warm and thoughts desaturating. His meds for his radioactive episodes. The ones Banner made him.

He shook a pill out of the orange bottle and stared blankly at it. Shook out a second pill and swallowed them dry.

Relief. For the first time since Peter dropped back into his world.

  
  


Peter gasped, sprawled out on the floor of the burning building. Note to self, his tingle does NOT work in moments of stupor seeing Mr. Stark.

Body still reeling with shock, Peter jumped to his feet, unable to feel pain over the jumble of every emotion possible thrashing inside him. Another dozen creatures were breaking out of the building, the structure creaking under the rapidly spreading flames. He whipped around, scanning the building for the largest still standing support beam and shooting a web to it. His other hand shot out and tugged harshly on the tail of a bird creature, a shrill squak ringing out as it shot up in flight towards a hole in the roof. 

Peter ripped out the beam on their way up, the warehouse collapsing like a deck of cards and trapping the remaining monsters. The bird thrashed erratically, flying higher and higher as it tried to buck Peter off midair. Mind scrambling for an escape route, Peter barely registered the distant shout of 'Kid, let go!' before he gulped and unstuck, floating in limbo for a split second before gravity started pulling him back down. He saw a flash of metallic silver and his hands shot out for purchase, gasping as he made contact with broad shoulders and was whisked in the other direction. 

"It would have killed you to hang tight at the compound, huh?" Sam shouted over the loud whoosh of air as Peter clung to him. Quickly scanning below, Peter saw Natasha and Bucky teaming up on gunwork, Doctor Strange effortlessly blowing enemies away, the Hulk throwing creatures around like ragdolls, Cap knocking monsters down like bowling pins with his shield, and- 

Heart beating out of his chest, Peter panicked at the thought of losing sight of Mr. Stark, not yet, not so soon. "Hey, you better not-" but before Sam could finish, Peter let go and nosedived through the air, web wings stretching from his elbows to his hips. The air caught him and he glided around buildings on the small, still monster-infested block. A stray laser blast darted across the edge of his vision and Peter swerved towards it, stumbling into his landing and running towards three creatures with their backs to him. Anxious heat burning in his chest when Peter saw a glint of red and gold, Tony taking them all on at once. Inhaling to his limit, lungs bursting with air, Peter barreled towards the fighting crowd, webbing the leg of one of the monsters and pulling it out from under itself. It collapsed and Tony whipped around in surprise, Peter using the same webbed monster as a billiard ball, sending the other two creations flying. 

Fighting roaring to a close in the background, Peter froze in place with the realization that no matter how much he wanted this, wanted Mr. Stark back, he wasn't ready to face the man he failed so horribly. What did he even have to show for himself after all Mr. Stark sacrificed? The air around him felt like ice water.

Body tight, chest heaving under the black suit, Peter slowly turned to face Iron Man standing a few yards away. Adrenaline plugged his ears and his limbs went numb, mind racing with- anxiety? Shock? Regret? Throat closing up, Peters hands shook slightly at his sides, unprepared for the iron mask to retract, it really was-

Mr. Stark's beard was more salt and pepper than Peter remembered, the white specks of age jarring his memory of a freshly Iron-Man-revealed Tony Stark on the science magazine covers he used to read in elementary school. The wrinkles were set a little deeper in his face, sunken bags from dehydration and stress. Something reflected in Tony's eyes that unsettled Peter to his core, the gaze flickering back and forth over his masked frame. Why was the air so tight and stuffy all of a sudden? He couldn't breathe, he couldn't  _ breathe _ .

Peter slid the black mask off, face flushed and eyes red, jaw clenched tightly. Peter could see something ghost across Tony's eyes, memories? And denial left the older man's body like exhaling a breath held too long.

Mouth agape, Tony swayed slightly in the heavy suit towards him and unconsciously Peter took a stumbling step back, sucking in a tight breath, wet heat blurring his eyes. Pain twitched across the older man's face as he said hoarsely, "Kid..."

Tony froze just a few feet away from the kid, his kid, as Peter raised his arm straight out, fingers curled and resting on the web shooter aimed at the throat, ready to incapacitate him and bolt. Peter's breaths were rapid and shaky, body breaking down in an erratic mess under the guise of a puffed out chest.

"Mr. Stark," Peter said in a voice that came out more cracked than he intended, "tell me something only I would know."

"Peter-" Tony replied breathlessly and frustration burned through the teen's eyes, holding his arm out stiffer. "There are no deceptive measures currently taking place, Peter, would you like me to-?" Peter shook his head at EDITH's words buzzing from his suit. Flashes of the Iron Man corpse Mysterio made him fight echoed in his mind, tears he tried to hold back slowly slipping out. "I need to know." Peter gritted out.

Tony stared at him, eyebrows knitted painfully and chest squeezing. His mind swirled, something only Peter knew, something a Peter from a different universe would still know, Tony suddenly faced with the reality that  _ this _ Peter might not really be his, not in the same way.

Tony stepped fully out of the iron suit, leaving it standing in place and he walked towards Peter, the teen stumbling backwards with a spark of fear in his eyes, but Tony kept advancing every step Peter gave up.

"M-Mr. Stark, you, no, Mysterio, this is your last chance or I'll-" Peter floundered, throat clenched and arm faltering with shakes. Tony's eyes swallowed him whole, the same burning as when Peter stepped out of Doctor Strange's portal and met him on the battlefield. Wordlessly, the older man reached into the breast pocket of his black suit jacket and pulled out a folded up picture, glancing at it nostalgically before flipping it around to Peter's view.

The two of them. The Stark Internship diploma in its frame, their little bunny-ear fingers behind eachother's head. He knew this picture. Peter knew this picture.

Taking it from Tony's hands, Peter stared at it in shock, one arm reaching up to use the back of his wrist to wipe his stubborn escaped tears away.

"Where did you get this?" Peter asked angrily and Tony stared him dead in the eye, letting out his own shaky breath through his nose. Peter's mind raced, looking from the photo back up to Mr. Stark and he insisted, "Mysterio could have found this. Could have printed out another." 

"Could he?" Tony asked back and Peter's mouth went dry, body frozen. Tony broke past arm's length, looking down at the kid.

"Do you remember what I told you, Pete?" Tony asked tightly and Peter shook his head, dumbfounded. Mr. Stark had told him a lot of things.

"If you died," Tony shrugged his shoulders, grief crashing around him, "Well. That's on me."

Peter lunged forward with a sob, the dam broken, and he fisted the front of Tony's suit tightly, "Mr. Stark, no, no, it's not, I'd be happy, I wish, my world, I wish that-"

Tony put his hands on either side of Peter's head, forcing the teen to look him directly in the eyes, Peter's voice dying in his throat. "Don't say it." Tony said quietly, firmly. "Don't ever, ever say something like that to me."

Peter nodded, numbly, before his shoulders heaved with more sobs.

"Mr. Stark, we won. You did it." 

Tony threw his arms around Peter in relief, crushing, holding on for dear life. He had won. But he hadn't really, really felt like it until now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry it took so long to update. The day after I posted my last chapter, my dog died and I just couldn't write at all. I'm finally feeling a little better though and missed updating <3


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I am ALIVE  
> I re-wrote this chapter at least once a week since my last update, I SWEAR I was not just slacking off TTwTT I don't think I've ever gone through such a harsh writers block  
> I made it a little longer than normal, I hope you all will forgive meeee  
> Also some Dr. Strange and Tony banter this chapter, I'm trying very hard not to let my ship preferences bleed into this fic heheh

Peter let the air be crushed out of his lungs, sinking desperately into Mr. Stark's arms as he felt, just felt, the reality of the man before him. 

"You're here." Peter croaked out.

"Yeah, kid." Tony replied quietly.

"You're real." Peter insisted, like Tony hadn’t understood what he meant.

Peter gasped through his sobs, croaking out miserably, “I- I messed up. I really messed up, Mr. Stark. When Fury needed me I said no, and I compromised EDITH, and, and, we needed- we need, everyone’s waiting for the next Iron Man but I  _ can’t _ , and Happy said it was okay, but then he-”

Beck.

Silent, breath knocked out of him, Peter stiffened. He was still in a world where Beck was a well trusted friend to the Avengers, the man who tried to murder him for EDITH was considered a hero and savior here. And, apparently, a member of Tony’s innermost circle. Tony felt the teen grow tense and pulled back to hold Peter out and inspect him for anything that could be wrong, any injury, a-

Eyes meeting, Tony paused at the blazing, sharp look Peter gave him, the teen’s shoulder rising with his quick breaths. “Mr. Stark,” Peter said firmly, jaw clenched, “I need you to tell me everything about this earth’s Peter Parker. Everything. Me and Spider-Man. Me and the Avengers. Me and you. Me and… me and Beck.” Tony processed for a second, harsh reminder that there was a ‘theirs’ Peter Parker and a ‘not theirs’ Peter Parker and he didn’t know where that boundary dividing the two was. Nodding solemnly, Tony said, “Hope you’re not tired, ‘cause this is one hell of a bedtime story.”

Arm outstretched, the iron glove sprung to Tony and slid onto his hand, materializing the rest of his suit with a glowing buzz of electricity.

Clapping the dirt off his hands as he stood before the pile of defeated monsters, Steve heard a rumble and looked to the sky only to see Tony in his Iron Man suit whip off towards Stark Tower, Peter clad in all black swinging closely behind him. He left out a sharp sigh through his nose, something tense settling in his stomach. The tall blonde snapped out of his thoughts when a warm hand brushed his shoulder blade.

“You worried?” Nat asked, a bit of a teasing tone. “Yeah, guess I am.” He replied back with a soft smile, not taking his eyes off the pair slowly fading into the distance.

“Gonna go after them?” She pressed and Steve paused, a hundred scenarios flashing in his mind.

“No,” He said simply, shaking his head at himself. “I learned a long time ago what happens when I think I know what’s best for Tony, and when I’m wrong.” 

Footsteps behind them caused the pair to turn, only to see Bucky walking towards them with his gun resting against his shoulder nonchalantly. The two soldiers made eye contact and Steve gave a curt nod that Bucky returned before stalking off. “Alright kids, let’s get to clean up.” Steve shouted out to the fellow Avengers as they heard sirens in the distance approaching.

Bucky found Stephen Strange talking to the Hulk as he tossed the limp bodies of monsters into a pile. The salt and peppered doctor’s eyebrow raised a fraction of centimeter and he said evenly, “Barnes.” Bucky nodded firmly and asked, “You have business with Stark?”

Stephen eyed him up and down, deliberating, before saying, “You’re still not a man of many words, are you?” Bucky shook his head and Stephen replied, “Good. I like that.” Before waving the other man to follow him.

  
  


Tony and Peter slipped in through the roof of Stark Tower, Tony having FRIDAY disable employee access the the top few floors that used to be home to the Avengers. Tony gave a proud smirk at the sight of how Pepper had kept it ready for a moment like this, where Tony ends up back on the field and he needed a base that was locked and loaded. Heart pounding, Peter followed the older man to what seemed to Tony’s personal workstation in the middle of a technologically extravagant room. His mouth fell open as he spun in a circle, taking in the machinery and wiring. “Look a little different than your earth’s?” Tony teased and Peter fumbled out, “You never- I mean, my… Mr. Stark never took me here.” 

Tony’s eyebrows knitted, memories of the hours and hours he, Beck, and Peter had spent here together coming back in an instant. Tony struggled to ration out what their relationship would be like minus all those late nights building, how close they would be without Beck there to force him to open up to the teen as much as he did. Biting his lip harshly, Tony pushed it down and thought of the responsibility he as the adult had towards keeping it together in front of Peter.

Robotic chairs sprung from the ground for them and Tony ushered the teen to sit.

“So, this earth’s Peter Parker. Where do I begin? Uhhhh teenage dork turned superhero after getting bit by a radioactive spider. Taking care of the small neighborhoods until he’s noticed by Quentin Beck, one of the founding members of the Avengers, who puts him on Tony’s Stark’s map. Peter Parker is recruited to co-star in the Avenger’s Jerry Springer episode in Germany, returns home and begins an internship at Stark Industries, and subsequently the Avengers- well what was left of it. Then Thanos-”

Tony paused, mouth a little dry, noticing how intently Peter had been staring and taking in the information. He struggled to keep down the images bubbling up to the surface of his mind. Memories of a blood splattered Peter, a Peter with glassy eyes, a Peter that was pale, too pale-

“Thanos.” Peter said bitterly, not noticing the inner turmoil Tony had gotten distracted with. Tony snapped out of it, nodding in somber agreement. “Then Thanos. So Peter Parker disappears in the five year blip, only to be brought back for the last round of the match.”

Peter looked hard at the floor for a moment. “And then I… uh, I….” The cogs in his head seem to jam, finally processing the weight of ‘died’, he had really died, and he couldn’t help but wonder how awful it was, how scary it was, if it hurt. What happened afterwards.

“And then you… saved the universe, is that what they say in Star Wars?” Tony sugar coated it, not sure if he could get the words out while looking at Peter at the same time. Peter just nodded numbly. “And then?” He asked and Tony let out a long, tense sigh.

“Lots of change of hearts took place; the Avengers were able to reconcile and officially add new members, along with a new set of lax laws influenced by politicians afraid a new alien invasion could happen any day. At first they played hard to get; demanded time travel tech, wanted to prosecute the ones that had run away from the accords, yada yada yada. They realized pretty quickly that if they don’t have the Avengers, they’re sitting ducks. So the band’s back together, bigger, better, stronger, real heart warming comeback.”

“But not you?” Peter pressed, disappointment and guilt leaking through his voice.

Tony swallowed. “I threw in the towel. Retirement. Stay-at-home dad.” 

Peter’s eyes flickered away, gauntlet flashing in his head. “Yeah.” He said with fake enthusiasm. “Hey, uh, Mr. Stark. Tell me about Mr. Beck… what he...”

Tony gave a neatly packaged short summary of Beck’s longtime employment with Stark Industries, the incident with Hydra concerning his superhuman powers, helping form the Avengers, and then-

“He told me about this spider-kid he kept seeing pop up on YouTube.” Tony smiled a little fondly. “He wasn’t going to be able to make it to Germany, and he had been bugging me to give you a shot with the team. So I took the plunge and brought you to the fight. When we got back, he offered you an internship at Stark Industries and a couple freelanced hero gigs alongside us.”

Peter hadn’t been given much information on what his life had been like here, or what his relationship was like with Mr. Stark and Beck. A pang of jealousy, of longing cut through his stomach. An Internship. Getting to fight alongside Mr. Stark instead of all those unanswered texts he had sent Happy on his night patrols. 

“And we- I mean, you and this earth’s Peter Parker… you made an EDITH for him too?”

Tony’s face grew a little hard, eyes shifting away. “Yeah. Well, it was supposed to be his.”

Peter didn’t know what to say, looking down at his still gloved hands. He wondered again if this was maybe another extremely vivid dream, that he’d wake up again in the hideout he’d been planted in by Mrs. Stark.

“That’s not…. That’s not what I had.” Peter finally said, deflated. “On my earth. I caused a lot of trouble sometimes… and you were always so busy. I never got to do that kind of stuff with you. I mean, I was so happy to get the suit, and you made me an honorary Avenger on the space ship, but... I thought that once we defeated Thanos and got home, maybe if I impressed you during the fight we could-” 

Tightness pulled at his chest as he thought about how  _ unfair _ this was, how robbed he felt knowing in this world it was more than he had wished for working with the Avengers and Mr. Stark. He jumped out of his chair, rush of adrenaline and anxiety spiking static through his limbs. He wrang his hands together and paced a few steps away from the desk, back to the mirror image of Tony Stark.

“I’m sorry.” Peter said quickly, looking for a way to sink into the ground and melt away.

“For what?” Tony asked, unable to hide the shock in his voice as he stood up from his chair as well.

Peter turned around to look at him but guilt stabbed through him as their eyes met, and instead flickered his wet, red eyes to the wall. “For wasting your time. I don’t think I’m your Peter Parker. I don’t think I’m the right one. I just-” Panic flooded his blood as his thoughts spiraled deeper, it was  _ wrong _ that he was forced to look at Mr. Stark alive and well but know that he didn’t belong, that his existence was inherently wrong here. “You know what, I can leave, I’m sorry to bother you Mr. Stark, I’ll-”

“Woah, woah, woah, Pete, come here and-”

“I can’t do this Mr. Stark, I’m sorry.”

“Can’t do what?” Tony pressed, taking a step forward as Peter shrunk back.

“I’m sorry if this is a lot and if it’s not cool then let me know and I’ll stop but-” Peter rambled, breath growing quicker, eyes filling with wetness that he wouldn’t let spill, “I can’t look at you without seeing it, without seeing what you looked like then, and now you’re telling me all this stuff I missed out on and just talking to you like normal is-” Peter paused, looking for words. “It feels like some sort of sick joke.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Tony finally said after a tense silence. “I can’t explain away all this mumbo jumbo, honestly I think my screws got knocked pretty loose the first time I found out about aliens, and Dr. Hocus Pocus and his circus. But I know Peter Parker when I see him. And if this is how I get him back, I’m not complaining.”

Peter looked up at him, eyes wide. 

Get him back. 

Mr. Stark wanted him back. 

Mr. Stark was  _ happy _ he was back.

Because this might be their only chance of seeing eachother again and he couldn’t afford to waste it.

Peter flooded with relief, flinging his arms around the older man and pulling him into a crushing hug before he flushed and pulled away, stuttering, “I’m sorry Mr. Stark, I just-”

Tony pulled him back into the hug, muttering, “Sorry, kiddo. I gotta be selfish right now.”

“It’s hard.” Peter whispered into Tony’s shoulder.

“I know.”

“I don’t know what to think. Where to go from here.” Peter mumbled desperately.

“Me either.”

Peter’s hands clawed lightly into Tony’s back.

“I missed you, Mr. Stark.”

“I’m not trying to preach to the choir, but,” Peter could hear the smile in the older man’s voice. “I missed you too, Spider-Man.”

FRIDAY powered up with a ding before saying matter of factly, “Boss, you have a visitor here to see you.”

Tony pulled away and said firmly, “Welllll that can’t be, because I told you to lock things down, so tell me how-”

A door slid open and a figure ran into the room, Peter whipping to see before he gasped loudly.

“Happy!!” Peter yelled, catapulting himself to the familiar face. Happy, though shocked, caught him as Peter babbled, “Happy, thank god, I’m so glad you’re here!”

Happy, near tears and poorly hiding it, was mumbling, “Kid, I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it, I cant-”

“Ah.” Tony said simply. “I will allow it, FRIDAY.”

“Thanks Boss.” She said, maybe a little smug. Peter launched into a long winded tirage of how Happy had helped and saved him on his earth, how he couldn’t have done it without the man backing him up, as Happy stared at the teen like he was afraid Peter would disappear if he blinked too long. 

Once the reality of their reunion set in, Happy said nervously, “Tony, you have a visitor in the lounge. A doctor, he said.”

Tony’s eyebrows raised. “A doctor. Was he dressed like a medical professional, or like some cryptid who lives in a burned down opera house?”

Happy paused for a moment too long and Tony rolled his eyes. “Fantastic. Well, champ, we’ve been busted. They sent the wizard to collect us.”

They met him Stephen in the lounge, the mystical man floating in the air with his legs crossed.

Tony barked bitterly, “Hey Dumbledore, funny seeing you around here. Get lost on your way back to Hogwarts?”

“Nice to see you too, shithead.” Stephen said back, deadpan, legs dropping back to the floor so he could walk towards them. “Peter.” Stephen nodded politely towards the teen. Peter blushed and said, “Dr. Strange. Sorry for the, um, trouble.”

“It’s not your fault you’re a victim of Stark’s bad influence.” Stephen said flatly and Tony gasped, holding an indignant hand to his own chest. “Bad influence? Me? Doc, you hurt me.” The older man said sarcastically. 

Stephen shut his eyes tightly, bringing a hand up to pinch his nose bridge and mutter something under his breath. After a deep sigh he said wearily, “Stark and I need to go over some logistics before we head back to the Avengers facility. If you two don’t mind…” He nodded at Peter and Happy.

Peter’s eyebrows shot up and he said “Oh, yeah, yeah, I’ll just, um…”

“There’s a fellow Avenger on the rooftop if you wish to meet with them.” FRIDAY said simply. Peter smiled sheepishly; that made sense, they probably planned to keep a better eye on him after his great escape that morning. He hesitantly left the room with Happy as his escort, looking back before he went as if Mr. Stark would disappear in thin air if he took his eyes off the man for too long.

As soon as they were alone, Stephen turned a sharp gaze to Tony. 

“We need you on board.” Stephen said firmly, and Tony shrugged passive aggressively. “Why can’t you just sprinkle some fairy dust on him and send him back?”

“Something is very, very wrong about all this.” Stephen replied testily. Tony rolled his eyes and sighed, “I get it, I get it, it’d be way too convenient that way, huh? Needs a little bit of the Stark magic touch.”

“First of all, never say that again. Second, that’s not what I meant. I need to know you’re not going to get cold feet and try to keep him here.” Before Tony could respond, Stephen continued, “Look, I get it. I can tell everyone else has thought it too. But the ripple effect that could tear through the multiverses is unprecedented.” 

Tony sneered at the taller man, commenting, “You know, it sure doesn’t seem hard for you to see him again. Like nothing happened at all. You got a lot of practice losing patients on the table?”

Stephen’s eyes flickered and jaw clenched, and Tony almost wondered if he just made a very bad decision involving being on the receiving end of a magical beatdown. But instead, Stephen said with a forced evenness, “Fourteen million. One out of fourteen million. I had to go through and play them out in real time; no fast forward, no clip notes, fourteen million. Out of fourteen million, how many times do you think I saw Peter Parker die for nothing? I die for nothing? You die for nothing?”

Tony stared back venomously, reluctantly saying, “I have a pretty good idea.”

“Fourteen million minus one, you douchebag.” Stephen spat back.

  
  
  


Peter stepped out into the fresh air, looking out to the landing pad for Stark personal aircrafts. His jaw dropped at the familiar face and he jogged towards it.

“Mr. Ba- Bucky!” He called excitedly, correcting himself at the last moment. “Queens.” Bucky responded simply with the ghost of a smile.

“Sorry about, um, you know, earlier.” Peter fumbled with a guilty grin. “Next time pick on someone your own size.” Bucky scolded. “You’ve got quite an unfair advantage, dontcha think?”

Peter’s shoulders eased with relief. “Everyone’s ok?” He said hopefully, and Bucky responded, “It wasn’t a half bad morning workout.” Once comfortable, Peter buzzed into a near interrogation of Bucky’s  vibranium arm, if he had nerve connection for feeling, it’s durability and speed, how many weapons it was equipped with. “You trying to steal Wakandian technology for Stark?” Bucky teased and Peter huffed with denial, insisting it was just cool. When the door opened and Stephen Strange, Happy, and Tony walked out onto the roof, Peter tensed up seeing the last man momentarily freeze.

“Champ.” Tony said quickly, beelining to Peter’s side and placing a firm hand on the teen’s shoulder, subtly pulling him back from Bucky. “Sergeant Barnes.” He continued with a chill.

Bucky didn’t correct him, nodding without eye contact. Peter’s gaze flickered between the two, not sure if he should say something to diffuse the tension, but a golden light caught his eye. Turning, he saw Doctor Strange waving his hands, a glittering circle appearing at the tips of his fingers, a portal opening to reveal the front of the Avengers headquarters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK SO now that you all know I'm not dead, please let me know you're not dead by leaving comments!!  
> I already started the next chapter and things are going to start getting REAL with Peter adjusting to this earth //waggles eyebrows  
> basically kekeke the plot will thiccen


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An EXTRA stuffed chapter?? from me?? A day after I already updated?? can you say hyper-fixation is back?  
> we've got some sick boys, fluff and bonding, and then DUN DUN DUN... the rug is pulled out from under Peter's feet

The first few days were a struggle to say the least. 

Peter reluctantly accepted that he had to live as if what he had been told about this world was true. There were still shadows of doubts, late night anxieties that echoed through his mind that it was  _ technically _ still possible this was just some extremely elaborate illusion. The Beck of his world said that Peter didn’t know what to believe, and thanks to the betrayal, that was true. The fear of ‘what if’ kept him teetering on highs of euphoria being back to the Avengers, and lows of pure panic at the thought of Mysterio popping out of nowhere to reveal it was all a trick.

And with Tony around, his judgement was even more clouded than ever. 

Doctor Strange had taken them back to the Avengers facility and rounded up a team of the more scientifically inclined members; Tony, Bruce, Scott, himself, and Quentin. The explanation of the situation seemed simple enough. Normally, Doctor Strange could access other universes with varying degrees of difficulty. Some he just had to wave his hand and a portal would pop up, others required spells, rituals, an array of enchanted objects, multiple other magic users assisting. But something was blocking Stephen from even accessing Peter’s universe for information, much less traveling to it.

“You’re able to communicate with other Doctor Stranges in the multiverse?” Bruce asked, disbelief soaking his voice. “That’s if there’s another Doctor Strange there.” Stephen said simply. “If I don’t exist in that universe, I reach out to whatever sorcerer supreme they have, or a being with magical and psychic capabilities similar to one. It’s not recommended to go meddling in other universes for no reason, though, so we keep contact to a professional level.”

“Do you and the other Stephens at least call eachother for your birthday?” Scott asked genuinely concerned. Stephen stared long and hard at Scott before turning and walking away.

  
  


Although Tony had his own wing in the building, he temporarily moved into the spare room closest to Peter when the anxiety of being-too-far-away-incase-something-happened set in the first night back. It quickly became obvious to the household that any separation between the two was an ordeal of anxiety; Peter was waking up frequently throughout the night, wound up and sometimes near hysterical from nightmares and would burst into Tony’s room to make sure he was still there, still alive. Tony wasn’t sleeping much anyway, all day long he’d fight off mental images of a lifeless Peter every time he had to look at the kid, leaving him high strung and restless all night long. And when Tony traveled down to the massive basement lab with the other scientists, Peter would spend the hours pacing, wringing his hands together, working himself up so much in his anxiety he’d have stomach pains, no matter how hard Steve and Sam tried to distract him. 

Tony wasn’t getting any work done either, constantly making excuses to leave and check on Peter, unable to focus. Peter had initially asked to come down with them and help, but the first time he walked down with Tony and saw Beck already standing at the screen of codes, Peter froze up, breaths coming faster and fight-or-flight kicking in. He was still completely unable see Beck without a near melt down.

So Peter stayed away from the lab and Beck did absolutely everything to avoid Peter. It was painful, so incredibly painful, to hear Peter’s voice through the halls, see Peter from another room, pass by the hallway leading to Peter’s room every night and know he couldn’t reach out, couldn’t tell the boy how happy he was to see him alive, how much he missed him, how sorry he was for not being able to save him from Thanos’ wrath.

Beck quickly picked up a new habit of downing a bottle of whatever hard liquor he could find, taking a few of his pills meant for radioactive flare ups, and falling into soundless, dreamless rest. He rationed over and over again, ‘It’s just to help sleep, it doesn’t affect my work during the day, it’s just until Peter leaves’ and Beck resigned himself to staying away from the kid for however long it took. For Peter’s sake.

And then Peter got sick. Very sick.

Stephen had explained to the house that due to the unusual nature of Peter’s existence in their universe, it was very likely his body was going to reject what was happening and would have to force itself to adjust.

“It can manifest in different ways.” The doctor explained. “He might begin to ‘glitch’ out, he could become ill, he could face pains similar to feeling like his bones and flesh are being stretched. I’ve heard of people becoming almost ghostly and they begin to fade or phase through solid objects. It’s different depending on the person, so he can’t go unsupervised for too long.”

At 4am on the fifth day since reuniting with Peter and returning to the Avengers complex, Tony was restlessly laying in bed, slowly scrolling on his phone through pictures of Pepper and Morgan when he heard a ‘thwump’. He rushed into the teen’s room and found Peter curled up on his side on the floor, drenched in sweat and wheezing to breathe. Tony turned him onto his back, shaky hand reaching up to feel Peter’s forehead and yelling out fruitlessly for Strange. When he didn’t come, of course he didn’t come, he was sleeping in a different wing and the only people still up would be working in the basement lab, Tony ordered FRIDAY to discharge an alarm to wake Strange. 

When he didn’t respond to her questions to specify what kind of alarm, FRIDAY set off the building-wide alarm, a shrill screech tearing through the entire complex. 

There was the pounding of footsteps and Beck tore into the room, sobered up with shock for half a second before diving to the ground with Tony. “I got him-” Beck said hastily while grabbing Peter out of Tony’s grip and scooping him up, already jogging towards the medical wing. One by one fellow Avengers were popping out of their rooms, unsure if they were being attacked or breached somehow, only to see Beck rushing past them with a pale Peter. Stephen quickly caught up to Beck and as they reached the first medical room, he barked for Beck to set Peter down on the bed as he set up an IV bag and his cloak tied a tourniquet on Peter’s arm. The cloak brandished the IV needle, holding it firmly with one bottom corner as the other corner tapped for Peter’s vein. As the IV went in, Stephen checked Peter’s temperature and mumbled under his breath, “109 °…”

“What the fuck do you mean 109°?” Beck jumped at the sudden voice and turned to see Tony had caught up to them, looking wild eyed. “Is that even possible? I swear to God, Doc, if you don’t fix this right n-”

“There seems to be some sort of misunderstanding that there is more than one doctor here.” Stephen snapped. “Get the hell out so I can do my job. Banner is the only other person allowed in here since he knows how to act around someone sick.”

Tony stalled for a moment, weighing the option of hurling another snippy remark at the sorcerer, but instead looked Peter’s shivering form and swallowed his pride, leaving the room and sitting on the hallway bench right outside the door. Beck lingered for a moment longer and Stephen said, “Help him.” while nodding his head in the direction of his cape. The cape flew off Stephen’s shoulders and out of the room, Beck jogging to keep up with it as it glided further down the medical wing and into a massive walk-in closet. The cloak had him pick up a pile of medical grade cooling blankets and bring it back to Peter’s hospital-esq room. By that time the other Avengers were crowding the hallway as Bruce explained the situation and how they needed to keep Peter stable until the sickness passed and his body was officially adjusted to existing in their universe. 

They had tried to be productive the first few hours to keep their minds from dwelling on the situation, Tony, Beck, Scott, and Bruce retreating to the lab to continue researching but unable to get any work done, instead mostly just pacing in circles. Three hours later Stephen joined them, having lowered Peter’s fever to 107° and knowing that was the best it would get for now. The idea that they would get work done while strung so tight was quickly abandoned when Tony and Beck got into a screaming match over theories, uncharacteristically throwing chairs before storming out of the lab. Tony made his way back to Peter’s medical room when he saw Bucky was the one supervising Peter at the moment and began another screaming rant, which Bucky took silently. Steve quickly appeared to try and diffuse the situation before getting accused by Tony of defending him, to which Rhodey popped in to try and calm the raging man down, followed by Sam joining Steve in Bucky’s defense, and of course Natasha heard all the chaos and jumped in, until Beck growled to himself and pushed past them all, locking himself into Peter’s room and closing the blinds through the big window so no one could look in and continue to disturb the sick kid.

Similar to the first day Peter had arrived and needed to be knocked out, Beck pulled a chair up to the bed and watched the unconscious teen breath laboriously, still coated with a thin layer of sweat and occasionally shifting with discomfort. Other than nonsensical mumbling under his breath every few minutes, Peter was silent with his brows knitted in distress. Beck tried to swipe a comforting hand over Peter’s forehead, but as quickly as he seemed to relax into the touch, his body would tense again with a wave of pain and a groan.

Beck watched miserably before he paused with realization and looked at his hands. The room slowly filled with a green mist and Beck put his hand back over Peter’s face, covering his eyes and forehead. ‘Something nice, something comforting.’ Beck told himself as Peter breathed in the mist and Beck’s influence slipped into his unconscious mind. Slowly, his breathing evened out, body releasing the tension it was holding and he let out a content sigh as he seemed to gently sink into the bed. Beck watched with a sad smile, wondering if this was the only way he’d get to see Peter before he was gone for good.

  
  


Peter’s conditioned plateaued for a few days and barely any work got done by Tony or Beck, both too worried to focus on research. They learned to keep Peter supervised even overnight after he began unknowingly ripping his IV out and clawing at his skin like it was burning him, almost rolling out of the bed a few times in what seemed to be fever-induced hallucinations. Tony began to keep his iron gloves in the room after trying to stop Peter from shredding the sheets around him when his temperature spiked back up two degrees, and learning the hard way that Peter’s super strength was still very much intact.

On the seventh day of Peter’s sickness, he blearily opened his eyes and Stephen announced a fever of 105°.

“Howww…” Peter whined, mind sluggish and overheated. “I haven’t… been sick since…. I dunno, before I became Spider-Man…”

Tony let out a long sigh of relief, running a hand through his hair and asking, “So he’s out of the woods now, right? None of his organs got slow cooked?” “He’s past the worst of it, once his fever breaks then that’s that.” Stephen confirmed and Peter groaned from the bed.

The next day Wanda was watching him when he croaked out being hungry. She peeled an orange and gave him a slice, waiting for him to finish it before giving him another piece. Instead he fell asleep for five minutes before stirring again.

“Wanda… can I have summthin’ to eat?” He mumbled. She smiled and said, “Peter, you still have a slice of orange in your hand.” He looked down at his fist and mumbled, “Woah...”

The day after that his fever was down to 103° and he was sitting up in bed, albeit still disoriented. “I wanna go help them… Mr. Stark and everyone...” He sighed, drowsy. “You’ll be able to, once you’re better.” Steve said confidently from the bedside chair. “Think you can spare some time to train with me, though?”

“You’d let me?” Peter gasped, and Steve had to stop him from rolling out of the bed, insisting he was already better. 

And it was the following day that Peter stirred, head clear from the fog and body no longer aching and sore. He fully sat up and rubbed his eyelids furiously, stretching his arms above his head before turning and pausing.

There sat Beck, arms crossed, body slouched over, head down and chin resting on his own chest, seeming to be asleep. Peter wondered if he could slip out of the room unnoticed and find someone else to help him unhook from the IV, but Beck started leaning sideways and quickly nodded awake. Beck blinked in surprise when he made eye contact with the teen.

“Peter!” He said excitedly, before coughing into his hand and composing himself. “I mean, uh, Peter. How are you feeling?”

“Better…” Peter said slowly, bristling slightly but trying to push his feelings down. “How long have I been sick for?”

“Week and a half.” Beck said sympathetically. “You haven’t gotten sick since you got your powers, right? Must of felt pretty shitty.” 

Peter awkwardly shrugged his shoulders. “Not as bad as getting hit by that train.”

When Beck blinked in confusion, Peter explained, “Oh, you, um, on my earth you pushed me in front of a bullet train.”

Beck’s mouth fell open. “I pushed you…. In front of a train?”

“Yeah, but I was joking.” Peter said sheepishly. 

“Oh gotcha.” Beck said sarcastically. “See, in our universe jokes are funny, but it’s ok if you’re not used to that.”

Now it was Peter’s turn for his mouth to fall open. “Wow!” He said indignantly, a small smile betraying him. “Ok, man, you didn’t have to go that deep!” 

Beck grinned widely, shaking his head with a small chuckle and they fell into another silent lull. After a minute of quiet Beck said, “I’ll just go get the doctor so you can get out of here,” before standing and leaving the room.

After Peter’s episode of illness, things seemed to settle down at the Avengers headquarters. The scientists started actually grinding on their research of a multiverse machine and Peter began to regain his footing emotionally and wander around the complex during the day, anxiously waiting for Tony to finish working.

It was War Machine, Falcon, Black Widow, Hulk, Bucky, and Wanda who were most likely to leave for missions; Cap seemed to be reserved for emergencies, he heard Ant-Man mostly worked with the Wasp on their own projects but wanted to be more involved with the Avengers, while Doctor Strange typically did his own thing protecting earth’s magical realm, except for their current predicament with Peter. And Tony hadn’t officially come out of retirement yet, so Peter wondered sadly if he’d stop being Iron Man again once he went back to his own earth. As for Beck… well, Peter wasn’t sure and he didn’t ask. They still avoided each other and though it wasn’t enough to send him into a panic attack anymore, Peter still got an anxious knot in his stomach every time he saw the man.

So he ended up spending a lot of time bouncing around the compound and noticing the little things. 

Like the unspoken rule that no one ever threw out food or leftovers without asking Steve if he wanted it. You don’t get rid of your pizza crusts, you don’t pick the tomatoes out of your sandwich and trash them, and you never let food sit in the fridge long enough to rot. It wouldn’t be uncommon for someone to be eating in the kitchen and then pass the rest of their plate off to Steve if he walked in. And when there was fresh servings of food, Steve always made sure everyone else got their fill first before inhaling his down in the blink of an eye. On those days were there no leftovers once Steve was done.

Bucky was the same way, but he also had a near obsession with watching food shows and cooking for the house. Multiple times on his way to bed, or waking up in the middle of the night to wander restlessly, Peter would find Bucky in front of the TV, only ever watching cooking programs and nothing else. He had wondered if they were just foodies and giggled at the idea, until he brought it up casually to Sam one day while asking where Steve was, to give him his pizza crusts. 

“Think about it, man,” Sam said, laying it out for him, “They both went through the Great Depression and a war… then Barnes is captured by HYDRA and I get the feeling they’re not ‘three square meals a day’ kinda guys.”

Peter froze, unsure what to say. The realization that they had hangups with food due to a history of rations and starvation hadn’t occurred to him, and he thought about how Cap had encouraged him to take seconds or thirds before even starting his own or Bucky’s first plate on the days they had eaten dinner together. It wasn’t some personality quirk, but a habit they had gotten into of sacrificing their own rations for their fellow soldiers. Any wasted food was a memory of a time they were crawling through mud, stomach empty and burning.

When he found Cap and Bucky working out in the gym, he decided to say something as he handed over his plate of crusts.

“Bucky-” He said tentatively. 

“Queens.” Bucky nodded back at him to continue as they crunched. 

“Those steaks you made on Tuesday were really good!” Peter said enthusiastically. “You’re, like, super good at grilling!”

Before Bucky could deflect the compliment, Steve threw an arm over his shoulder and insisted, “Buck’s insane with a grill, you should see what this guy can do with burgers and ribs.”

Now that got Peter’s eyes sparkling. “Burgers? Ribs?” He echoed and Bucky looked away sheepishly, though with a small grin.

“Oh here we go again, Steve, if you want me to make ‘em just say so.” Bucky grumbled and Peter jumped in, “I want them too!”

“You know what would go great with that,” Steve said, looking into the distance. “Some mac and cheese. Sam got me into pouring barbeque sauce all over my mac and cheese and I haven’t been the same since.”

“Aunt May showed me how to make mac and cheese,” Peter pushed excitedly. “I could do it.”

“That’s a great idea, son.” Steve nodded feverishly. “And you know what’d be great to wash it all down? Buck, you remember that place we used to go for to get malts and milkshakes? What was it called?”

“Stella’s.” Bucky said matter of factly and Steve let out a longing sigh. “Yeah, Stella’s.”

He had also noticed that Natasha and Wanda were near inseparable, both at the compound and teaming up for assignments.

“She was in a really bad place after losing her brother and Vision.” Dr. Banner had explained to him one night when Peter asked if they always went on each other’s missions. “Nat took Wanda under her wing. Sure, Nat doesn’t have ‘powers’ but just having someone to depend on makes it easier for Wanda to work on controlling her abilities.”

Peter nodded, a little lost for words. Losing Mr. Stark was awful. The pain he felt… he wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy. But losing your brother and then your partner? Peter shivered at the thought of losing MJ, of Ned, Aunt May, Happy.

“Hey!”

Wanda yelped and looked up, seeing Peter hanging upside down on a strand of web while she put on her shoes at the front door, the day after he had talked to Dr. Banner.

“Peter, you scared me!” She scolded and Peter grinned apologetically. 

“Sorry, sorry. I just wanted to know, where are you going?”

“Grocery shopping, maybe a cafe after.” She said, “It depends on how late Natasha wants to stay out. Assuming we don’t get called in for an emergency.”

Peter dropped to the floor, asking, “You like going out instead of having groceries delivered?”

“The fresh air is nice.” She insisted, it wasn’t often heros got to do the mundane anymore.

“I wanted to ask, those cookie things you had the other day, the ones with raspberries inside you let me try? Those?”

Wanda’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “The kolaczki?” 

“Yes! The… those!” Peter said. “Do you think you could get more?”

Wanda slowly smiled, opening the front door and saying over her shoulder, “Yes, Peter, I can get more.” Peter called out ‘thank you’ to her and she walked over to the running car in the driveway, popping into the passenger's seat and Nat took off.

“Talking to Peter?” The older woman asked, surprised. “Yes, he had a request for dessert.” She replied coyly. “Glad he’s coming around.” Natasha said and Wanda sighed.

“He’s a troublemaker.” She said fondly, and then a little more solemn, “He reminds me of Pietro when he was his age. I think they would have gotten along.” Wanda was silent the rest of the car ride, but not without a small smile on her lips 

And then he had noticed Scott Lang stepping out of the lab every day in the late afternoon to stand outside the garage, and curiosity got the best of Peter. Climbing up a floor and crawling out a window, Peter scaled the side of the wall until he found Scott face timing with someone, turned slightly sideways so Peter couldn’t see. Straining to hear the conversation, Peter didn’t realize until it was too late that Scott was wrapping up with a, “I love you, peanut, I’ll see you soon.” Before ending the call and turning around, almost face to face with Peter. 

“Ah!” Scott yelped, jumping back.

“AH!” Peter yelped back, accidently unsticking from the side of the wall and flopping to the concrete. Scott scrambled to help him back, gasping, “Jeez, kid, you okay? I’m sorry but you scared the crap outta me.”

Peter shook his head apologetically and said, “Sorry, I just… wanted to see if you were doing secret Avengers stuff.”

“I mean, I WISH I was, but I was talking to my daughter. She’s around your age now.”

Peter’s mouth made a small ‘o’ with surprise. Yeah Scott was an adult, but he didn’t look old enough to have a teenage daughter.

“Sorry, Mr. Lang.” Peter said playfully and Scott shook his head, insisting, “No, no, you don’t have to call me Mr. Lang, Scott’s fine. We’re both bug bros after all.”

Peter perked up, clenching his fists tightly and saying, “Yeah! Yeah, bug bros!”

“You can’t do the whole ‘going tiny’ thing, right?” Scott asked and Peter shook his head. “Well you should try it out sometime, be spider-size. I swear, it’s insane shrinking down and then exploring one of those bajillion piece lego castles. And riding on a butterfly’s back? They’re absolutely crazy, it’s a roller coaster. Let me know if you want a go at it.”

Peter was shocked silent for a moment before he squealed out, “Mr. Lang, Scott, Mr. Lang… there is nothing I’ve ever wanted to do more than that, oh my god.”

But still, at the core of it all, Peter was just keeping himself occupied until Tony finished with working in the lab every night, his chest still bouncing with anxiety every time he went too long without seeing the man. There was an impending heaviness in his chest that these were the last opportunities he had to be with Tony, and he couldn’t help but feel like it was being squandered with Tony stuck down there and Peter not yet ready to face Beck. Some nights his thoughts would tunnel, worrying he had already annoyed Mr. Stark and that’s why he spent so much time down there and why it was so easy for him to be away from Peter, at least easier than it was for Peter to be away from him. It had only been a few days since his body adjusted and he left the hospital ward, but he quickly became unable to sleep without seeing Mr. Stark and developed a habit of laying on the couch while Bucky watched his cooking shows, the white noise of the TV helping him fade in and out of consciousness until he heard the doors to the basement lab open. He’d jump up, fix his disheveled hair, and then try to casually buzz to Tony’s side, which always failed to look as smooth as he hoped, and then rinse and repeat the next day.

Finally, Rhodey caught him one morning staring sadly at the door to the lab.

“If I have to see you walking around with those damn puppy eyes one more time, Peter, I’m going to go crazy.” The older man sighed and Peter blushed with embarrassment. “You should go down there and help them crack the code.”

“But I-” Peter scrambled for an excuse, “I’d just get in their way, it’s fine, really.”

“You know, if anyone tried anything with you, Tony’d rip them to shreds with his bare hands. No suit needed. But oh,” He continued, shaking his head sympathetically, “I don’t even want to know what Beck would do to someone fucking with you. I know ‘don’t worry about it’ isn’t great advice, but you got a lot of people on your side here. Beck especially.”

Peter’s eyebrows knitted together and Rhodey patted him on the back, walking away. 

The gnawing curiosity.

Beck. Him and Beck.

What would things have been like if Beck had been the person he had spoken to on top of that roof on vacation? Words of encouragement, grown up advice, not treating him like a kid but still... Making him feel a little more protected than being alone without Mr. Stark.

  
  


Peter woke up the next morning to the voice of EDITH over FRIDAY’s speakers.

“Peter. Peter, your assistance is requested.”

Groaning, Peter rolled over and rubbed his eyelids.

“Whassup, EDITH? Iss early...”

“There was an emergency mission and a majority of the Avengers left to attend to it. Possible HYDRA involvement so it was necessary that you did not accompany them.”

Peter shot up, stomach sinking. “I’m here alone?” He asked, anxiety bubbling up.

“No, it’s a safety precaution that you’re never left here alone. In addition to FRIDAY and my own defense protocols, Quentin Beck is the only other member here currently.”

“Oh… Beck.” Peter said, deflated. Alone with Beck.  _ Alone with Beck. _ There was still a pain that twisted up inside him, the fear of the green smoke and visions.

“Yes,” EDITH continued, “But Quentin Beck is currently unresponsive in his bedroom. I’m discouraged from contacting Mr. Stark while he’s tending to important missions, so it’d be preferable if you were to assist.”

Unresponsive? 

What the hell did that mean?

Peter jumped out of bed, ordering EDITH to direct him to Beck’s room. He jogged over to it, losing a little bit of nerve standing in the still-dark hallway, but forced himself to knock firmly.

“B… Mr. Beck? Mr. Beck, it’s Peter.” He said nervously. He waited two minutes with no reply before biting his lip and opening the door.

The room was dark, though on the far end he could see the bathroom light was on, door halfway open. He took a few steps in, noting the empty bed with disheveled sheets. Green glittering caught his eye and Peter’s head whipped towards the bathroom, asking, “Mr. B-”

Gasping, Peter ran to the figure on the floor, laying halfway into the lit bathroom. Mind flooded with memories of Beck motionless on the street after the battle with the fake ‘elemental’, Peter quickly turned the man’s body over and froze when the saw Beck’s veins glowing a sickly neon green through his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Beck's AI is finally going to be utilized in the next chapter, and I've seriously been trying to think up an acronym name since I STARTED this fic... if anyone has any idea, let me know :') But as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments <3


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to @Who_Am_I_To_Judge for the name recommendation for Beck's AI!!  
> Yes I know ANOTHER CHAPTER I am on beast mode rn

Objectively, Beck knew it had been a stupid thing to do. He’d done this song and dance plenty of times to know that retreating back to alcohol never worked out in his favor. But grief mixed with a lack of self-preservation was a dangerous combination, and if his suffering was unavoidable, why not take the edge off things? 

He had a pretty good system worked out; wake up hung over, coffee with the radioactive pain meds. Every few hours when he took a break to stretch his legs, he’d take a shot of vodka to loosen up. Certainly not enough to even get buzzed, he was a grown adult after all who had quite a high tolerance and plenty of experience in holding an excessive amount of alcohol. Just something to warm up his blood, nobody had to know. Then when it was time to go pass out, which could be anywhere between late night and the early hours of the morning, depending on how absorbed he was in his work, it was a bottle of whatever strongest alcohol he could find washed down with a half handful more of Dr. Banner’s pills.

The high was euphoric at best and completely numbing at worst, taking him away from the fact that Peter was right there, Peter was right  _ here _ , alive, the kid who died in his arms, blood staining the glittering gold of his armor, looked at him with only fear and hatred. With betrayal. And he couldn’t mentally separate himself from whatever Quentin Beck that Peter had met, because he might as well have betrayed Peter in this universe too. It should have been Beck that died in the final snap instead. It should have been anyone else honestly, anyone but him, and all the life Quentin Beck would get to live instead of Peter Parker, who beamed with excitement and a desire to do good, haunted the older man.

Betrayal was Beck surviving because he didn’t deserve to. He  _ knew _ he didn’t deserve to live more than Peter, so his existence deserved to be punished.

It had been the dead of night when Fury contacted them. Peter had finally stopped waking up at every little creek and door opening throughout the night, and the team managed to round up in a meeting room for the call. Luckily Beck hadn’t left the lab yet, otherwise he would have already been plastered and busted. 

Tony had said no jobs while he was back working on the multiverse navigator for Peter, no missions, no nothing, but he couldn’t deny they needed every little bit of intel on HYDRA considering it was their doing that brought Peter here.

“I can’t just leave him here.” Tony sighed angrily as Rhodey argued, “If you wake him up to tell him we’re leaving for a job, he’s going to chase after us. What if we get there, get that shit reeled in, and get back as soon as possible, before he notices.”

“But if something happens-” Tony started, not just wanting to stay for Peter’s sake, but for his own. Distance from Peter was too risky, it reminded him too much of the truth of their universe. 

“One person can stay,” Natasha said firmly, “But just one. We have a lot of potential bases to hit.”

Tony struggled to process for a moment before Steve cleared his throat.

“Tony, I know you’re not going to like this, but,” Tony was already glowering in Steve’s direction, “Peter gets along well with Bucky, and considering this is HYDRA, it’d make sense for Bucky to hang back and-”

“Oh no,” Tony interrupted sarcastically, “Sergeant Barnes proved himself quite capable in the fight against Thanos, and considering his state of rehabilitation I’m sure he has no hard feelings about having to tango with some of his old buddies back at camp.”

Bucky shot Tony an absolutely venomous look but remained silent, so Tony shrugged and continued.

“Quentin stays or I’m not going.” Beck’s head shot up at that, mouth agape.

“Tony, I don’t think that’s a good-”

“If Peter wakes up before we’re back, you can cast an illusion like no one’s even gone. He won’t be freaked out, you don’t have to be his line of fire, and we’ll slip right back in like nothing ever happened. All you’ve got to do it make some noise from the basement, Captain Meathead beating a punching bag in the gym for a few hours, maybe set Natasha out out the couch cleaning her guns, and it’ll be like any other day. Besides, you have access to FRIDAY and EDITH in addition to ALICE. Lock this place down if something seems off. Nobody gets in, and nobody gets out.”

  
  


And so the rest of the team silently packed up and left Quentin in the near-empty facility. He swallowed thickly, resigning himself to no alcohol or painkillers tonight; there was still a chance that HYDRA was planning an ambush on the Avengers headquarters, but Beck was hopeful they weren’t dumb enough to pull that on a Stark Industries protected building. EDITH could have drones locked and loaded in the blink of an eye.

He spent a vain three hours attempting to patrol the inner perimeter of the building despite the lack of any threat in attempts to keep his mind from wandering anxiously to being alone with Peter. At first the creeping headache seemed normal; maybe he was working himself up with too much with worry and should lay down for a bit. It wasn’t until he reached the hallway leading to his bedroom that his vision began to swim, the floor and ceiling seeming to flip upside down as Beck stumbled through it, gripping the wall and gasping at the wave of nausea.

Staggering through his door and shakily closing it behind him, Beck tumbled to his knees and panted with his forehead pressed to the floor. It wasn’t until he raised his head and tried to run a hand through his hair that he saw it; bright, glowing, green veins painted across the skin of his fingers.

This couldn’t be happening.

Normally there was an onset of symptoms leading up to his bouts of radioactive side-sickness, one or two days to prepare. Beck grunted painfully as slowly the glow snaked up his arms, across his chest and up his throat, dancing across his jawline and cheekbones.

His pills. If he could make it to the bathroom and take his pills, maybe it would subdue this flare up.

Hissing with exertion, Beck dragged his body, inch by inch, across the bedroom floor towards his connected bathroom. Flashes of stabbing pain left him sweating profusely, stopping to shudder on the floor when a particularly bad wave crashed over him. In the darkness of the room, he felt the doorframe of the bathroom before he realized he was there. 

Clinging to the frame and propping himself up on it, Beck grunted as he blindly reached a hand up to search for the light switch, grimacing when he hit it and the brightness flooded his eyes.

He blearily looked around, scanning the sinktop when his eyes finally came into focus and hit the little orange bottle. 

Empty.

Empty? Echoed in Beck’s mind. How could it be empty. There were enough pills to last him through two or three normal cycles of illness, how could-

Calculations flashed across his mind. He had to have been taking at least nine pills a day since Peter got here and he started his destructive bender to be out already.

Dreadful realization hit his fuzzy mind and he cursed himself for being so God damn stupid. 

This eruption of sickness was because of his pill-filled cocktails, not in spite of them. How many masters degrees did he have, and he couldn’t have seen that coming from a mile away?

Fully collapsing to the ground, facedown on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, Beck thought of Peter and prayed the boy wouldn’t wake up and realize he was alone.

  
  
  


“Mr. Beck!” Peter yelled, shaking the older man by the shoulders. “Holy- I mean what the- I can’t, I can’t-” He stuttered, adrenaline flaring. “EDITH?! FRIDAY?! What’s going on, what do I do?!”

“FRIDAY can assist with connecting ALICE to the Stark intercom system.” EDITH said and FRIDAY confirmed, “One moment, Peter.”

Before Peter could ask who the hell ALICE was, another woman’s voice filled the room, this one with a gentle French accent.

“Hello Peter.” She said pleasantly. “Although you are familiar to me, I unfortunately am not familiar to you, so I will introduce myself. I am ALICE, Artificial Life and Interpersonal Coded Enitity. I am glad to see you again.”

Peter looked to the ceiling in surprise, it made sense that Beck had his own AI if he really was the close to Tony, but Peter just hadn’t thought of it until now. When he didn’t respond, ALICE continued, “Monsieur Beck suffers from a medical condition relating to his enhanced abilities, though he is currently going through an unusual episode. Under the Do Not Contact order by Monsieur Stark during their important mission, your help would be greatly appreciated.”

Peter nodded dumbly, carefully hoisting Beck up and placing him on the bed. ALICE walked Peter step by step through retrieving more medicine from Dr. Banner’s personal office, having to dig through plenty of vials and other bottles in a fridge full of homemade medicine. “It will be absorbed fastest if you take the liquid form and inject it directly.” ALICE had suggested, but Peter paled at the thought of using a needle on someone and sheepishly asked if there was another way, leading ALICE to instead suggest grinding the pills into a power and mixing with juice to make a paste to be wiped on Beck’s tongue and swallowed naturally.

Peter sat at the side of Beck’s bed in a pulled up chair, leg bouncing anxiously as he watched the man continue to struggle with shallow breaths and groan painfully, veins not diluting. Eyes darting around the room, Peter took it all in; it was a fairly average adult’s room, much less decorated than Beck’s personal office. A glint caught Peter’s eyes and he looked to the bedside table, seeing a pair of sunglasses half hidden under a wallet. Curiosity getting the best of him, Peter carefully slid them out from under the wallet and put the sunglasses on.

Jumping a little when they flickered on, ALICE’s voice returned with a, “Is there anything I can help you with, Peter?”

“I have access to you?” Peter replied with surprise. Smile in her voice, ALICE responded, “Other than information that has specifically been locked by Monsieur Beck for his eyes only, both you and Monsieur Stark have full access to my information and controls. As with FRIDAY, and EDITH. We are all connected through Monsieur Stark’s technology. Did you want to explore your accessible files?” 

Palms a little sweaty suddenly, Peter shifted at the feeling of anxious butterflies appearing in his stomach. 

He had access to the very files that documented Beck’s life, a life with a Peter Parker that was no longer here, a life with a Tony Stark that was.

Swallowing thickly, Peter asked hoarsely, “Do you have anything that mentions me? Er, I mean, of this earth’s Peter Parker?”

“I have mass amounts of photos and video footage from my sunglass interface, Mysterio suit interface, and home security interface, all stored in my cloud. Would you like me to compile a reel?”

Peter chuckled morbidly to himself at the thought of some sorta highlight reel with the most horrible man he’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. “Yeah ALICE, that’d be… fine.”

The lenses before his eyes flicked with a loading screen and Peter stiffened when he saw himself on the screen, rooftop of Stark Industries, bouncing up towards the camera. 

_ “Mr. Beck, right? Mr. Mysterio? I am- it is so- wow, it is so-”  _

A hand stuck out from where the camera was placed and Peter heard Beck reply, _ “I saw some of your videos, Peter. I gotta say, pretty sick.” _

The location switched and a shiver ran up Peter’s spine when he recognized the playground him and Mr. Stark had argued at while he was pursuing Vulture. The camera was directed towards himself, on the edge of angry tears while Mr. Stark’s suit flew off.

“ _ You’ve been trying to warn them?” _

_ “Yeah. I’ve been updating Happy with mission reports… Asking for new assignments… he’s not even getting back to me.” _

_ “There’s a lot going on behind the scenes, buddy. We really need you to lay low while we handle damage control.” _

_ “Maybe there’d be less damage if Mr. Stark made me an Avenger now. I got this. But he doesn’t want me.”  _

_ “What do you want, Peter?” _

_ “To be an Avenger. Fight, to be a hero, all that stuff. Like...” _

_ “But is that really what you want? Or do you feel you need to do it? Because of how you are now?” _

_ “No, no, this is- I want this. I do. And I know I can do more, if, if Mr. Stark just-” _

_ “I get it, kid, I get. Now how about you level with me? I’m gonna work on getting Stark to ease up on you, ok? The good word you wanted put in, right? But I want you to promise me you’ll spend a solid chunk of time just fluffing up your resume with the basics; real intern style, you know? Sweep through the small stuff and let Tony build his trust in you back up…. Hey, come on now, Webs. You scratch my back, I scratch yours.” _ Beck’s arm stretched out, Peter returning the fist bump.

Then it switched again, Peter had just turned down Mr. Stark’s offer to join the Avengers and Beck was rushing out to the driveway to see Peter. Jaw dropping as he took in the scene playing on the sunglass lenses, Peter watched himself be pulled into a big bear hug as Beck showered him with praise, stopping only to pull in into a loose headlock and ruffle his hair. 

And then Peter was somewhere, someone’s house? Eating take-out Thai food with his homework spread across the living room table, Beck walking in holding two cups and saying excitedly,  _ “I got us those smoothies with the black bubbles in them!” _ , scene switching to Peter and Tony laughing around a lab desk while it looked like Beck was trying to rip off web fluid residue from his hands, only managing to get staplers and pens stuck into it, lenses switching and switching between big dinners with Tony, Pepper, Beck, Rhodey, and Happy, and then Peter knocked out on Beck’s couch as a blanket was tucked over him, to Tony yelling at Peter  _ “I told you to wait for backup” _ and  _ “You could have gotten killed, what if they kidnapped you and sold you on the black market to be experimented on” _ while Peter sat with his head down and shoulder bleeding, Beck interjecting not to be so hard on Peter when Tony retorted back,  _ “It’s because I  _ **_care_ ** _ , you should try tough love sometimes instead of spoiling him!” _ , then him and Beck sitting on a rooftop somewhere in New York City at dusk, Beck’s arm around his shoulder and pulling him close as Peter silently rolled Uncle Ben’s watch around in his hands, fingers running over the engraving of the man’s initials. 

Throat tight and mouth slack, Peter burned with anger at himself, embarrassed at how shamelessly, shamelessly jealous he was of the Peter Parker of this earth for having the intimacy and kinship he craved so badly with the Avengers in his own universe. Brows knitted, Peter watched the memories flash before him in bits and pieces, him, Ned, and Beck playing Smash Bros in what must have been Beck’s house, Peter testing a new invention in a Stark Industries lab and Tony clasping him firmly on the shoulder and pulling him into a hug while Beck cheered in the background, him and Beck bruised in the lobby of the Avengers facility munching on watermelon and laughing, playing a prank on Happy, Tony locking them both in the lab and setting off the fire sprinklers when they started challenging his theory, Beck losing contact with Peter as he boarded the alien spaceship, and-

Peter ripped the glasses off, sweat dripping down his forehead and breathing heavily. “Peter?” ALICE’s small voice called out from the sunglasses and Peter choked, struggling to answer. 

He knew that place. That battlefield.

The last fight with Thanos.

It felt like it was something that was supposed to be kept secret from him, something not meant for his eyes, like walking in on someone naked. Was it sacrilegious to watch your own death? Was this a boundary not meant to be crossed when you were dropping in on another universe? Peter thought tensely; did he even want to know?

His eyes flickered down to the still unconscious man, and Peter let out a small sigh of relief when he saw that the glowing veins were slightly less vibrant than before and Beck’s breathing seemed to have evened out. 

Look at the ALICE glasses again in his hands, a voice in the back of his head told him, ‘You won’t really, really understand this Mr. Stark, this Mr. Beck, unless you find out what really happened.’

Taking a shaky, tight breath in, Peter slipped the glasses back on and his hands clawed nervously into his thighs, fight flashing before him, Mr. Stark pulling him into that hug, Mr. Beck crying and wrapping him up in his arms in relief, then Peter ripping the gauntlet away from Thanos at the last moment before the real Peter had to close his eyes, shoulders shaking and shuddering and cowering at the sounds of screams, screams he had never heard before, people sobbing and crying, there was more than one and Peter couldn’t tell who they were, before he heard Mr. Stark from the video say,  _ ‘Pete, Pete look at me-’ _ And Peter on instinct opened his eyes only see himself covered in blood, cradled in Mysterio’s arms as blood bubbled up from his throat and dripping down the gold armor, the two men were begging him to stay with them, stay awake, running hands through his hair, and Peter never, ever thought he’d be so horrified to hear Mr. Stark say he was  _ proud  _ of him, and Peter couldn’t stop as he felt his body become numb and far away while his mind tried to catch up in the confusion of ‘Dead? But aren’t I alive? Am I dead right now? Should I be dead now?’ falling deeper and deeper down a slippery slope of  _ can’t breath _ and  _ throat tight- _

Peter jumped when Beck rolled onto his side and coughed violently, the teen scrambling out of the chair and grabbing onto the older man’s broad shoulders. 

“Mr. Beck?!” Peter cried out nervously as Beck wheezed while trying to lay back down, clutching at his chest. Beck opened a hazy eye, taking a moment before registering the teen before him. “Peter?” He asked, shock bleeding through his voice.

“ Monsieur Beck,” ALICE said, again over the speakers of the room, “Medicine is not my area of expertise so I would suggest consulting with Dr. Banner, but it seems you had a withdrawal from the unusual amounts of medicine you’ve been taking. May I suggest weaning off slowly? Peter has already provided you a dose for this morning.”

It took a moment for the cogs in Beck’s head to start moving again and he groaned, slapping a hand onto his forehead. “Peter-” he grumbled, mortified and looking away, “I’m sorry, I, you can go, it’s okay-”

“It’s fine!” Peter said quickly, nerves betraying his voice. “I wanna… make sure you’re ok.”

Beck’s eyebrows furrowed and he looked back at the teen, still squinting from his headache. “Is everything okay? Did something happen?” He pressed.

Peter shook his head and insisted, “No! No, I just…. I think I saw my life flash before my eyes.” He finished lamely with an awkward chuckle. Beck tried to process what that meant, he really did, but his head was still swimming with dizziness and instead he sunk back into his pillow with a pained groan.

“I just need to lay down a little longer..” The older man mumbled in an attempt to sound reassuring. Peter nodded and they sat in silence for the next fifteen minutes, ALICE, EDITH, and FRIDAY no longer interjecting. 

“Mr. Beck?” Peter finally said, and Beck cracked an eye open again. “What’s up, kid?” He replied drowsily. 

“Were you happier before I died?”

A shiver crawled up Beck’s spine, and he turned his head to fully look at Peter, the teen’s face tense. “I was.” Beck confirmed after a beat of silence. Peter looked at the floor, weighing his words before he spoke them. “I think I was happier before Mr. Stark died too.”

Beck slowly propped himself up on his elbows, and Peter continued. “I think everyone else was happier then also. Because Iron Man was around. And I’m worried I’ve got a long, long time of disappointing people left before I’m good enough to protect people like he did. And every time I think I’m feeling better, something happens that reminds me of him, of what happened, and I feel like its two steps back. Like it just happened. I thought I made real progress, but everything kinda… fell apart, and now I’m here.”

Peter looked up at Beck, eyes tired. “Do you know how long it takes? If you can start being happy again?”

Beck stared back, a loss for words, before he nodded slightly and said, “I’m happy now.”

There was a twitch in Peter’s face as his eyebrows knitted further together, looking like he had just received a painful blow. When Peter only looked away guiltily and nodded, Beck pushed himself completely up and said, “Come on, let’s get some breakfast going.”

  
  
  


Tony grumbled as they filed out of the aircraft a few hours later and back into the Avengers facility’s garage, having busted five makeshift HYDRA bases with no specs on their multiverse machine. “Waste of fucking time, spent my morning bashing a few idiot’s heads together, could of slept in, that jackass Strange got to go chaperone his precious little mansion filled with elf books and-” were amoung his talking points. Tony hadn’t heard anything from Beck despite FRIDAY assuring him that both men were safe at the facility and he was beginning to get antsy, and when he got antsy, his temper tended to flare, so the ride back everyone had gone out of their way not to put themselves in the line of fire.

Eyes wide and mouths open, the group found themselves standing in the living room connected to the largest kitchen, TV on a low buzz and FRIDAY having activated a window tint so the room was dimly lit. Peter was lying on his side on the couch, slightly curled with a light blanket tossed on top of him because Stark air conditioning was nothing to be reckoned with, even in August.

Beck was sunk into the armchair on one side of the couch, head lolled to one side and arms crossed with his legs kicked up. Both asleep, messy plates of mostly finished food left on the coffee table in front of them.

Wanda looked at Nat, who looked at Rhodey, who looked at Bruce, who looked at Scott, who looked at Sam, who looked at Bucky, who looked at Steve, who looked at Tony, who blinked rapidly as if the scene before him would disappear. 

When the room, in fact, did not disappear, Tony turned to his fellow Avengers and said quietly, “I don’t know about you losers, but I’m going back to bed.” Before kicking off his shoes and flopping into the free armchair on the opposite side of Beck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not mentioned: Steve and Bucky scarfing down those leftovers  
> Did you guys notice Peter's begun referring to Quentin as Mr. Beck again? hehehe its so cute, I couldn't resist him converting back to it once he got more comfortable around the man.
> 
> Please let me know if you guys enjoyed this chapter, or if you feel Peter needs more bonding time with certain Avengers (or more angst time... if you guys need more angst I got plenty more ready to go)  
> And also thank you all for ignoring all my typos and when my writing is screwy and non-sensible, I typically write between 3am-7am during an all nighter and then post with no beta because I like to live on the edge


	15. Chapter 15

Peter gazed out the wide window of the foyer, eyes rolling over the dusty, desaturated blue morning sky before the sun would emerge and turn it a hot orange hue. Apprehension wrapped his chest tightly, still stuck on what had happened the day before when he found Quentin Beck unconscious on the bedroom floor with a sick green glow. Back in Prague after Mysterio had been struck down by the fabricated Elemental, Peter froze with the images of a fallen Tony Stark bubbling back up in his mind, the parallel he drew between Tony and Quentin undeniable. Maybe he really was a stupid sap, because even after everything that had happened, seeing Beck in the crumpled heap brought him back to a place of panic, the scared little kid in a jumpsuit as some would say.

If he thought about it too much, the echoes of what he saw through ALICE’s lenses began to grow clearer and clearer in his mind until he swore he could taste the iron tinge of blood in the back of his throat. 

Going into hiding after his identity had been broadcasted to the world… the isolation, the fear, the anxiety and hopelessness, Peter couldn’t figure out if he had truly wanted to die. He never  _ said _ he was going to kill himself or anything, but the nights that were too dark, the dreams of his fallen comrades too vivid, the shadows that felt too much like Mysterio growing larger, he had pleaded with no one in particular for it to just stop and go away, and he hadn’t cared much at that point how it happened or if it was something so absolute. 

Peter had heard once that during an interview with survivors who had jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, each one had said they realized they wanted to live before they even hit the water.

Waves roaring in his ears, Peter wondered if he had just cracked the surface. 

He wanted to live. 

He saw his death and while he’d do it again, to save people, to protect someone he loved, to spare someone he didn’t even know, there was no poetic beauty like the movies made him believe. Death was a shitty goodbye. Mr. Stark had taught him that.

So yes, Peter wanted to live. But more than that, he wanted to know that it was okay for him to live, he was allowed to live when someone else died despite his mind whispering ‘it should have been you’.

  
  


It was early, even for Peter to be up, and he soon wandered towards the facility’s gym. Peeking his head inside, he saw Steve, Bucky, and Sam in casual clothes warming up for training. Steve and Sam were a bit more rambunctious, laughing deep and loud, bodies lax, and Bucky was also relaxed, more relaxed than he usually was ghosting through the building, but he just nodded politely or gave a wry smile.

Sam was quick to notice him, eyes flickering towards the teen for no particular reason before announcing, “Well, looks like we got a special guest today.” And Peter flushed, not meaning to look like he was spying. He quickly stumbled fully into the room, running a nervous hand through his hair and struggling to come up with an excuse, “I was just, you know, woke up early and just checking out whatever was going on and I saw you guys and-”

“Finally taking up my offer on training?” Steve finished with a Captain America-esq smile, shoulders lifting up higher once he noticed Peter. Blinking for a moment before it came back to him that Steve had indeed offered to train him while he was stuck in that hospital bed, Peter went from zero to a hundred immediately, buzzing over with a “Yes, yes, yes! Yes, training, exactly, yes! I’m ready! Just, just let me know what to do, Mr. Rogers, Captain, Mr. Cap.”

Sam shook his head and laughed, and Bucky hid his slight smile while Steve responded, “Sorry son, but I don’t lead the training.”

Taken aback, Peter looked at Sam and then Bucky to figure out which one of them was the instructor but they both shook their heads in return. Steve chuckled and revealed, “We’re just waiting on _ Miss Romanoff _ to whip us into shape. She works with Rhodes on his physical therapy first, then takes care of us.”

Peter’s mouth made an ‘o’ with realization and then quickly nodded. The Stark-invented exoskeleton was so inconspicuous that sometimes Peter forgot the older man was paralyised at all. He quickly fell into line stretching with the fellow Avengers before he was led outside to run laps around the building. Bucky was fast. Steve was faster. Peter was fastest. Sam didn’t want to talk about it.

A regular old mile run didn’t do anything for the more physically inclined Avengers, so Sam drilled them to sprint, sprint, sprint until they broke a sweat and were breathing harshly, and called out to them drill-sergeant style to run faster, harder, keep up, keep up, and after almost twenty minutes of some of the most fevered running Peter had done in his life, his endurance began breaking. Steve barked some words of encouragement at him when he gradually fell back to the Captain's pace and that kept Peter going for a little while, but soon enough he was falling back even more. Bucky’s icy blue eyes were on him, silent as Peter slowed until they were neck-and-neck, and he didn’t speak until the teen made his first step to fall behind the soldier.

Grabbing the younger man by the scruff of the back of his shirt, Bucky pushed him forward a bit and said, “Come on, Dollface, keep it moving. This ain’t a stroll in the park.”

Peter gaped, unable to flush since he was already sweaty and red, and bit back indignantly, “I’m not a dollface! I’m almost seventeen!”

Bucky gave him a smirk and responded, “You can be Queens again if you stay infront of me for the rest of the run. You don’t, then you’re Dollface.”

Peter gave a less-than-totally-serious glare, but gritted his teeth and pumped his legs harder, squeezing his eyes shut and focusing on breaking ahead. He didn’t catch up to Cap, but he managed to stay a step or two infront of Bucky until they rounded a corner of the building and saw Nat standing near the door leading into the indoor gym, her foot tapping impatiently. 

“Unimpressive as usual, ladies.” She yelled out as the four men stood panting before her, lined up like a roll call. “And to what do we owe the pleasure?” She asked Peter with a coy smile. Peter straightened up and said, “Cap offered to let me come to training, and in my world I never- we never got to-” He began but Nat nodded approvingly and said, “You’ve got an advantage with superhuman enhancement; stronger than Steve I’d bet, honestly I’d like to see you go head on with Hulk to see just how powered you are. But your endurance needs work and you don’t have any technique. When fighting you just do whatever works, right? Reflexes? Think on your feet?” Peter nodded obediently and Nat continued, “It’s a good natural talent to have, being able to rely on instincts. But it’ll bite you in the ass soon enough if it hasn’t already. When you hone your technique and your endurance, it makes your instincts that much stronger. You’ve got a lot of work to do, Parker.”

Peter nodded eagerly, hands fisted with excitement he was trying to play off cooly. “You will NOT regret this!” Peter cried and Nat lead him back into the gym, throwing over her shoulder, “That doesn’t sound like foreshadowing at all.”

Soon Peter was standing in the middle of the gymnasium, shoulders tense and flexing his fingers with anticipation as the adults stood before him.

“No powers, no weapons, just hand to hand combat. Otherwise, give it your all. Cheap tricks, full priced tricks, on the table.” Nat said firmly. “We need to work on your close-combat and hesitation. Buck. Up first against the kid.”

“You tryna see the kid beat me without the webs?” Bucky mumbled out as he stepped up to Peter, familiar with the song and dance they had in the garage the morning Peter took off.

“That’s what I’m hoping.” Nat said back cheerfully, “Because that means we’re not starting from the basics. Now on the count of three. And don’t hold back, okay kid?” Nat pressed.

Peter nodded, body going tense and getting his footing ready for battle. “One... two…” Nat started, and Bucky struck out, Peter’s sharp gasp cut off as he lurched back into a backbend. “Oldest trick in the book.” Nat sighed fondly, and lectured, “You fight long distant because of your webs and you do best with large areas to move around in. So we need to work on the exact opposite.”

Bucky was very quickly forcing Peter back from dodging blows, Peter’s body instinctively looking for a direction to shoot a web at to escape and the moment of distraction throwing him off long enough that he couldn’t move to the offense. When they fought in the garage Peter had figured the other man had been holding back as to not hurt him (and Peter made sure to take advantage of that), but now he truly realized how badly he had under-estimated the enhanced soldier. 

Peter quickly took a face to floor when Bucky caught his arm and wrestled it behind his body. For almost three hours this went on, Peter facing Bucky, Sam, or Steve, getting a little bit better each round but only starting to have a fighting chance once he was warmed up and his Peter tingle kicked in, and then Natasha would point out all his blind spots, weak points, moments of hesitation that held him back. 

“Pretty sure a solid punch from you could shatter concrete like glass,” Natasha scolded, “But your inexperience means you’re not fast enough to recover from dodging blows  _ and _ wind up for a full strike back. Your fighting relies heavily on using your surroundings to your advantage, but sometimes it's just you, an empty room, and someone who doesn’t have a problem with killing.”

Peter sat the next few rounds out, watching each of the men go head on with Nat, some wins and losses on both sides before Nat ordered them to hit the showers. Bright red, Peter dragged his feet towards the locker room, staring at the backs of the taller men. Peter may have been incredibly broad chested and muscular for his age, something he had to always downplay while dressing for daily life, but the adults were… well, adults. Superhero adults. Strongest people on the planet adults. 

Showering at school was embarrassing enough when they did their swimming lessons for Physical Education class, and Peter was pretty sure he was going to keel over and die if he had to be more than shirtless infront of a trio of Avengers he idolized, quickly looking for an excuse to slip away and bathe back in his room when they passed by the showers and he realized they were all elaborate, separate stalls.

“Thought we were about to have a measuring contest?” Sam teased as he elbowed him in the ribs, snickering at how Peter had worn his emotions on his face the whole walk there. Oh yeah. This was the Avenger’s headquarters, not a public high school.

Peter ended up following them back to the kitchen after they were all washed up, only responding when directly spoken to but soaking up being in the company of  _ the _ Captain America,  _ the _ Falcon,  _ the _ Winter Soldier,  _ the _ Black Widow. A lot of what they were saying went over Peter’s head; references to missions, some negotiations still going on with the government, until someone cracked a joke about Cap’s shield and Peter unconsciously bloomed into a huge grin.

“What’s so funny, hot shot?” Nat asked and Peter pursed his lips to try and hide the smile but replied, “Just thinking about the time I got to hold the shield.” Bucky whistled low, feigning being impressed, and Sam teased, “When you got to hold the shield, or when you stole it at the airport in Germany?”

“Germany.” Peter said with forced guilt, trying not to show how giddy he was at the memory and how lucky he felt that they could all joke around about it now. “Well, glad it was put to good use in your universe as well,” Steve smiled, “Am I still using it there, or did I get to keep Mjolnir? Our Thor took it with him when he went off-earth with the Guardians.” 

Peter’s face fell with realization that he hadn’t yet explained the outcome of the battle against Thanos other than Tony dying and then his world’s history with Mysterio.

“You didn’t… keep the shield.” Peter said tensely, and everyone’s gaze on him seemed to grow a little more focused.

“I didn’t... keep the shield.” Steve echoed back, as if he had heard Peter wrong, tone obvious that he wanted an explanation.

Peter swallowed thickly and continued, “I didn’t get the full story… they don’t really brief me but Fury gave me the basics I think… he said you had a mission to finish.”

“A mission?”

“A personal one, he said. Fury, that is. You stayed behind in the past while returning the stones, and came back to give up the shield in old age.” 

Steve stared hard at Peter for a moment before he turned his gaze out the window, cogs silently turning before he asked, “So… no Captain America in your universe anymore?”

Peter shook his head nervously and replied, “No, there is… you handed down the shield to the Falcon.”

Sam’s eyes shot open wide, Steve turned to look at his friend, Nat’s mouth fell open just a bit with surprise, and Bucky didn’t react. The room was silent for a moment before Steve let out a deep sigh, running a hand through his hair before chuckling dryly. “Well, can’t deny I considered it as a possibility, but it just didn’t seem right. Not for us. Still, never thought me and Buck would have actually managed to get back. Good for them.”

“Oh, um,” Peter said nervously, “Buc- Mr. Barnes didn’t go back.”

Steve’s eyebrows knitted, face looking like he just took a blow to the stomach and Peter wondering if he shouldn’t have said anything at all. His eyes flickered to Bucky and he saw the other man just looked on, surveying Steve’s reaction.

“Did you know?” Steve asked, turning to Bucky, and Bucky shrugged, responding, “I had a feeling. No confirmation, but I pieced it together. The wanna-be tough guy from Brooklyn always running off to make trouble.”

Tension finally cracked a little bit, Steve punched Bucky in the metal arm while Nat and Sam’s shoulders seem to ease slightly, but once everyone had decided to get back to their respective work days, Peter walked away wondering if Steve still looked stiff or if his imagination was playing tricks on him.

  
  
  


It was less than an hour later Bucky letting himself into Steve’s office, swinging the door open without warning. Steve was going over a stack of papers from the UN, glancing up quickly at his friend as Bucky took a seat in one of the spare chairs. “Anything recovered from the HYDRA bases we hit?” The brunette asked and Steve shook his head, sighing out, “The guys downstairs are still looking into it. Trying to see if there’s anything in those junkyards that’ll help with rebuilding the multiverse tech, or if it’s a fake lead to throw us off.”

“If anymore HYDRA activity pops up, you’ll send me in, right?” Bucky said, his demand cloaked as a question. “You know Nat and Rhodey usually take care of assigning out, but I’ll put in a good word for you.” Steve teased, not looking up by mischief easy to spot in his eyes. Bucky huffed with a suppressed laugh, but pushed on still. “You’re getting a little better at looking the kid in the eye, but still laying on the Captain America grandeur thick.”

Steve sighed, pushing the paperwork away from him on the desk and hunching over it, one hand to his forehead.

“I got sick of seeing good kids dying in the trenches a long time ago, Buck.” He growled out. “But I’ve never had to keep looking at them in the eye afterwards.”

“You’re blaming yourself.” Buck said firmly, a hint of scolding. “Still.”

Steve hummed in his throat with thought, before eventually replying, “I just don’t know how I- that Steve Rogers could have gone back. Gone back and not done anything about HYDRA. About you. Coulda nipped it in the butt. Before any of this started.”

“HYDRA would have found a way.” Bucky insisted. “The infection runs deep, Steve.”

“Weren’t you ever mad I never went back for you?”

Bucky paused. There was a lingering, unspoken end to that question, about a time long before Thanos and the infinity stones.

“I was never mad. Not once. And you’ve never believed me.”

Steve grinned sadly at the brunette.

“And maybe I never will.”

Bucky studied Steve’s face before he cracked a smile and grunted out, “Jerk.”

“Jerk?!” Steve said, scandalized but laughing back.

“Brat.” Bucky bit back with a grin, and Steve laughed deeply, insisting, “Now that’s too far.”

Still laughing it off, Bucky sauntered to the door with hands in his pockets before Steve called out, “I wanna know, Buck. Why are you keeping such a close eye on him?”

“On Queens?” Bucky asked, turning his head over his shoulder with a sideways smile. “Reminds me of some other little punk I used to know.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve said sarcastically, crossing his arms playfully.

Stepping out of the room, Bucky barked out, “Yeah. From Brooklyn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I noticed a lot of the time, the fandoms of Team Iron Man and Team Cap hate eachother  
> WELL NOT IN THIS HOUSE  
> WE LOVE ALL THE AVENGERS HERE  
> That's honestly the hardest thing for me reading Tony centric things, where they make Cap a huge asshole, or Bucky/Cap centric things where they make Tony basically a villain  
> They are all my husbands and I will protect them all
> 
> ANYWAYS next chapter will be more Peter-Tony-Beck focused~!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra long chapter to make up for the delay in this and the last chapter!

After training with Steve, Bucky, Sam, and Nat, Peter found himself back at the door leading down to the lab, he always found himself back at this door, finding excuses to walk past it during the day, anxious to hear Mr. Stark’s voice from far away, proof that he hadn’t disappeared into thin air. 

Every day he had thought about going down in there, picturing himself walking in nonchalantly and going, “Oh hey Mr. Stark, yeah, just thought I’d help you guys crack this multiverse code”, desperate to be near the man with however little time he had left here. He was blowing it, blowing all the opportunities he had left to be near the man.

But he knew who else was down there.

Quentin Beck.

Suddenly the door would seem a little taller, the shadow underneath it a little darker, and the pounding of his heart would tell him ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow for sure-’ and he’d walk away from the doorway with tremors coursing through his hands.

Today, the door didn’t seem so tall. 

He tried to recall Beck’s face in his mind, the foaming-mouth lunatic on top of the bridge, EDITH dangling from his face as he screamed bloody murder at the drones to keep firing, but instead he saw a man hunched over him as blood ran down the gold plating of Mysterio’s armor, tears and tears and tears.

Peter stared hard at the frosted metal doors, and when he started being able to make out his reflection, he broke the barrier and pushed himself in.

When he descended, he froze at the realization that all sights were on him, something that seemed pretty obvious now. Dr. Banner, Scott Lang, Strange, Tony, and Beck were wide eyed and slightly slack jawed, fully expecting the intruder to have been Natasha, there to scold them about not eating in God knows how long.

“Kid-” Tony started, but Peter quickly cut in, “I-” before his voice cracked and he gave a humiliated cough to cover it up, “I came to help. With the… the my world stuff. That stuff.”

Not exactly like he had practiced mentally.

Beck turned to hide it but he was beaming, absolutely beaming, and Peter felt a twist in his stomach, unsure if it was recoil from being so close to the man, or sympathy toward knowing how much his Peter had meant to him.

  
  


Tony swept in instantly, throwing an arm around Peter’s shoulder and prodding, “You sure you’re up to it, kid? You don’t want a little R n’ R? Rest and relax-amundo?”

Peter could hear the edge to his voice, the uncertainty and hoping Peter would stay, of course Peter heard it, he hung onto every word the man said since he appeared in their world.

“I’m sure, Mr. Stark.” Peter said firmly, desperately trying not to betray his own nerves.

There were footsteps and Peter turned to see Doctor Strange walking swiftly towards him, Peter blinking when he saw the man was wearing what he could only describe as casual clothes if you were Dumbledore on Sunday.

“I don’t think Stark can brief you on our progress without stopping to monologue every forty-five seconds, so I’ll bring you up to speed as simple as I can. There are many universes I can open a pathway too with my own powers, and few more I can open with the assistance of additional magic wielders.  _ Our _ universes aren’t supposed to be accessible at all to eachother. The nature of your arrival is… quite unusual, even for my realm, so we’re going to see if we can get you back is the way you came. Artificially.”

“Scientifically.” Tony corrected cheerfully, and Strange raised an irritated eyebrow at him. “Like I said… artificially.”

“You know what-” Tony started, Peter flushing as his mentor squared up to the doctor, “I think some Halloween store’s missing their cashier. Why don’t you go find your pointy wizard hat and we’ll take care of filling in the blanks with the kid.”

“By all means, Stark, you seem to love not getting any results. All there’s been so far.”

“Oh what, can’t wave your magic wand and speed things up a bit? Or do you only break it out at Disney World when you perform Fantasia?”

“You want to see a magic trick that bad? Okay, I’m about to make my foot disappear up someone’s ass-”

“I think I understand!” Peter squeaked out, getting between the two heated men. Strange clicked his tongue, then wiped the folds out of his shirt in a display of composure. “Do you have any questions, Mr. Parker.” Strange asked in an all too rehearsed voice from talking to patients. Peter thought for a split second, humming under his breath and surveying the room.

“Yeah, um, where’s your cool wizard cape?”

Tony choked with laughter he barely attempted to stifle and the cloak lifted up from one of the desks, waving a corner to Peter and Peter waving back in surprise. Strange pinched his nose bridge and sighed harshly.

  
  


It had taken almost an entire day to go over everything they’d tried so far, all the theories behind what they still need to try, how they believed multiverse-travel was similar and different from time-travel and why it was so much harder to unlock. Peter’s head was spinning and he realized guiltily that this was way out of his league, a kid genius didn’t translate to most recognized scientists and doctors in the world, but he knew, knew he couldn’t bare to be so far away from Mr. Stark anymore. Desperate to be taken seriously, Peter enthusiastically drove into all the theories and nodded along with the older men, finding out no real progress had been made yet other than debunking what wasn’t working.

The lab was large enough for at least twenty scientists, tables and equipment fully integrated into the walls and floorboards and able to be powered on by Friday’s command, a new desk materializing for Peter right by Tony. It was a few hours into the night, only after Peter had managed to basically rewrite Tony’s theory for time-travel without realizing it and rendering the research useless, did they called it a night and half of the crew went to bed, Scott and Bruce insisting they’d take a second shift.

Daily now Peter beelined straight to the lab, shaking with excitement and nerves at the first time (well, for  _ him _ ) to get to build and theorize along Mr. Stark, occasionally derailing to ask Dr. Banner about  gamma-radiation and mutation as a result, making Scott re-explain the quantum realm over and over and about the physics behind his growing and shrinking, even asking Stephen a few nosey questions about magic, to which Stephen summoned a glowing ball of static magic, showing Peter how to cradle it in his hands as the electric bolts ran over the teen’s palms feeling like tiny insects scurrying on skin. It was this exact moment Tony walked back into the lab with a fresh cup of coffee, dropping the mug with a ‘oh shit’ and slapping a hand to his chest to activate his iron gauntlet and throwing that hand facing towards the two, a small sonic boom shooting out and blowing the static away. “Kid, you do  _ not _ take any fun candy Willy Wonka over there gives you, you got that? As an adult, that’s an order.” Tony said firmly as Stephen sputtered, trying to collect the little electric bolts dancing across the floor.

They had fallen into another lull of silence as every chipped away at their own scribbling and statistic running, Peter’s eyes flickering across the room to take everyone in when Beck cursed to himself and jogged past Peter to the computers on that back wall, seeming to run some numbers through hologram and ALICE summarizing the possible outcomes of whatever Beck had just plugged in. With a sigh, Beck turned back to walk towards his work station when Peter bit his lip nervously.

“Mr. Beck?”

Beck jolted to a stop when Peter called out just as he was passing the teen’s desk. So shocked he didn’t even think to mask it on his face, Peter continued with, “Everyone told me about their powers so I figured I’d ask how, uh, your powers work since you said yours are… real.”

Tony’s eyes snuck a look at the two, Beck standing stiff for a moment before absolutely melting into the question. Beck composed himself and asked with a smirk, “You know how in the movies someone falls into a vat of radioactive waste in some secret lab?”

Peter immediately perked up, eyes flashing like he was going through his mental catalogue of every movie he’d ever seen and comic book he’d ever read. Tony himself was impressed at how quickly Peter’s defensiveness peeled away to reveal a babbling mess of a teen.

“I’m sorry, you’re saying that you’ve unlocked a way to  _ literally _ control the illusions  _ from inside people’s brains _ after you’ve infected them with your green smoke? You’re not actually casting any sort of hologram or projection viewable to the natural eye? That completely changes the nature of what I thought your power was from a tangible- well not tangible, but a purely visual based illusion versus, what, literal mind manipulation? Because in theory the hallucinatory properties in your gas should function the same as any other hallucinogenic, you’d have to influence someone on the outside with completely uncontrollable results, left up to the devices of the mind and how potent the substance is, but you’ve made it basically a transfer of data from your brain to theirs, which also raises the theory on if it’s functional to those unconscious or with limited brain activity to begin with, which would be a  _ huge breakthrough _ in-”

Tony ducked his head to grin to himself at the sight unfolding before him, turning to a grimace with an ache in his chest when he couldn’t help the thought ‘Exactly like things used to be’. The thought echoed a little longer inside him before he bit his lip in frustration and let his eyes wander, landing on Stephen.

To Tony’s surprise, Stephen was peeking at Peter and Beck out of the corner of his eye, wry smile at Peter’s building volume and enthusiasm. Huh, Tony thought, I thought vampires had icy hearts.

  
  


A few hours into the evening and Peter was scrolling through files on a hologram projection when he paused on a folder. Eyes scanning it, he squinted and his eyebrows knitted together.

“What’s this?”

The older men turned to the teen as he read through the recent mission report of ransacking the HYDRA bases.

“Don’t worry about that.” Tony said quickly, swiping his hand and the hologram scrolled to some programming files. Peter looked at him, ready to say something when he stopped himself and bit the inside of his cheek, deciding to instead ask Mr. Stark a question about a building component. It wasn’t until hours later, when Peter had to be shook awake from falling asleep at the lab desk, that he crept back to his room  _ (“I’m gonna go get more sleep, Mr. Stark, I’ll be back in the morning!”) _ and dove under the covers, pulling out EDITH and slipping her on.

“EDITH!” He whispered feverishly, “Connect me to FRIDAY.”

“Hello, Peter.” FRIDAY’S now small voice came from the sunglasses. Peter grinned to himself and asked, “FRIDAY, do I have access to a 'HYDRA' mission folder accessed earlier in the lab?”

FRIDAY paused for a moment before responding matter-of-factly, “Typically, Mr. Stark would have a protocol denying you access to mission reports. But after this universe’s Peter Parker passed away, such protocols were unnecessary to be ordered.”

“So there’s no protocol currently in place limiting my access to the mission reports, right?” Peter said hopefully and FRIDAY almost hummed with approval, “Technically, that would be correct.”

Peter gave himself a fist pump. He sure missed Ned, but FRIDAY stood in as a great replacement for the guy in the chair.

Skimming through the text on the glasses lens, Peter squinted and realized that was the day he had found Mr. Beck collapsed, the rest of the Avengers had dismantled multiple labs and stripped them in hopes of finding anything that could lead to information on the multiverse machine. He saw 'HYDRA' over and over again, but he couldn’t figure out why that sounded so familiar. He knew one of the team members had mentioned it before.

“FRIDAY, bring up a summary on HYDRA.” Peter whispered again, and he stiffened when the emblem popped up through the lenses. 

The snakes. Peter had seen this when he arrived in this universe, it was all over the lab, on the coats of the men who had chased him. Before he could scroll through the text, something echoed distantly, only audible through his superhuman hearing.

That was a door to outside slamming shut, meaning someone had either come in, or gone out.

He laid paralyzed in bed, a spike of adrenaline at the thought of investigating giving him the artificial courage to sneak out of his room and creep along the dark hallways, sensing people through the door.

Pressing flat against the door frame, Peter more than easily caught their conversation, starting with a, “They really went out to the sticks for this one, huh?”

That was Bucky, Peter thought to himself confidently.

“Cloaked pretty well too, they were counting on privacy. It looks like just this one, though.”

And that was Beck for sure.

“When do we leave?”

“One hour. Only us since it’s a solo lab. Tony and Steve are on stand-by for us.”

“That knucklehead Steve think I can’t take on one lab?”

“I think…” Beck sounded hesitant, “I think he just gets hesitant. Given the circumstances.”

“Well I gotta remind that punk I’ve got no qualms about taking on HYDRA.”

Peter stifled a gasp and silently slipped away from the door, reluctant to miss out on more conversation that could fill him in, but knowing he wouldn’t have enough time to get away if they suddenly decided to come back inside.

HYDRA. One hour.

Blood pumping to a roar in his ears, Peter crept back into his room and ran to his bedside table, picking up the activator to his suit, staring intently with a clenched jaw.

“FRIDAY, sorry, one more thing. Is there already a file created on this mission?”

“Yes Peter, Miss Romanoff is awake in her office working on the mission remote, she’s already written up the mission plan.”

“Does that plan include which aircraft they’ll be using?”

“I must prep it for use, so yes, it states which one will be utilized.”

Peter let out a long held breath, running a panicked hand through his hair before he groaned to himself and started stuffing pillows under his blanket until it took a human-like form.

  
“I’m going to be in  _ sooo _ much trouble.” He groaned quietly to himself as he slapped the spider-emblem activator onto his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN
> 
> Peter you absolute rascal
> 
> Also I'm sorry if there's any crazy mistakes in my writing, I swear I went through it like 4 times and I found typos and bad grammar each time TT_TT but this all nighter has destroyed me and I've reached my limit


	17. Chapter 17

“Their base seems to be built directly against the mountain side, Natasha and Rhodey want us to poke around a little bit and observe before we take it down.” Beck announced, scrolling through the hologram on the aircraft’s dashboard as they neared their destination. “We’re cloaked but I’m going to park her a bit away just incase they have sensors.”

Bucky nodded firmly, no stranger to taking on HYDRA after the blip back. A lot of things disappeared because of the snap, but there were still plenty of HYDRA agents left to keep growing their grip around the world.

They landed in the woods and started a silent hike up to survey the building from a modest distance, the base another warehouse-looking building cosied up against the mountain rock.

“They’re freezing all signals.” Beck mumbled under his breath, tapping at the buttons on his vambrace. “We lost contact?” Bucky asked and Quentin shook his head, eyebrows knitting together. “Not completely, that would cause a huge alert back at the tower; but I can’t change the status of the mission anymore. It’s showing us as in the green, in the observation phase. I can’t send a call out, but they’re not expecting one since this is a stealth mission. They’re just observing the exterior from Stark satellite.” 

Bucky sighed through his nose.

“If something  _ does _ happen, they’ll be none the wiser.”

“That’s what we’re looking at.” Beck sighed back.

“Well, we just won’t let anything happen then.” 

Quentin nodded silently. The previous bases had all been easy enough to wipe out with only two members each, and although it was nice to have Cap and Tony monitoring back from the facility, they weren’t going to need backup anyway.

“So which entrance you taking?” Beck asked back and Bucky stilled for a moment. When he faltered too long in responding, Beck gave a sympathetic sideways smile and said said, “Look, I know you worry every time, but when I get close combat I’m almost as strong as you and Cap. That green crap I fell into was good for more than just smoke and mirrors. I don’t need an escort.”

“I don’t mean it like that.” Bucky said back guiltily. “I know you’ve been on these missions before but… you don’t know HYDRA like I do. Don’t get caught, you hear me? Something happens and our contact’s out… you make the biggest Goddamn racket of your life.”

  
  


Bucky didn’t realize they were in the lion’s den until he had been crawling tight lipped and tense through the vents of the building for what was definitely too long.

The HYDRA base wasn’t built next to the mountain.

It was built  _ into _ it.

Bucky paled, long separated from Beck and only beginning to comprehend how deep the rabbit hole went, this base many times more massive than the one Peter had been found at and the ones they recently secured. He had no way of contacting the other man to abandon the mission and come back with reinforcements. 

And It was soon after that he realized he was being tailed. 

‘Getting caught in the vent’s a rookie mistake’ He told himself, nerves hardening as he slipped into a survivalist auto-pilot, finding a barren area of the building to drop down from the ceiling and into a dark, empty lab.

Whoever was following him had to be drawn out; the only chance he had of ending this quietly was if Bucky hit first, and hit hard. Bucky sunk back into the shadows, unmoving, unbreathing, until a figure in all black dropped out of the vent, believing he had somehow lost track of the soldier.

Bucky flexed his fingers on the metallic arm, the seamlessness of Wakandian vibranium not making a single squeak. The figure silently paced the lab desks in the darkness, hunched and defensively searching. Nearing his direction, Bucky braced and readied to lash out when the masked figure was just a little bit closer, when the figure stopped and gave a panicked sigh, gripping his head and whispering to himself, “Stupid, stupid, stupid, I’m so stupid, I can’t believe-” before it touched a hand to it’s right ear and the mask retracted with nano-technology.

Bucky sprung from his spot and Peter whipped around fearfully for a split second, before grinning with relief and whispering out, “Bu-”

His heart stopped when he saw Bucky’s beady, icy eyes, entire face screwed up in a rage Peter had never seen him wear as the older man came charging at him. Peter scrambled back, adrenaline bursting through his system, but Bucky caught him by the upper arms, a crushing, painful grip hard enough to bruise and shaking the teen. Peter’s mouth went dry when he looked into the man’s wild eyes, pupils barely a tiny dot in his rabid state, his lip curled to show his teeth gritted tightly.

“What the  **fuck** are you doing here, Queens, why the  **fuck** would you come here, here?!” Bucky hissed, enraged, and Peter floundered with shock, tremors zipping through his body and his breath coming in faster and faster, his stomach shrinking. “I-, I-, I-” He panicked, like he was staring at a stranger and he could feel the pounding in his chest, like a rabbit caught in a trap, the air becoming thinner and thinner, Bucky’s fury paralyzing him.

Bucky gave him another violent shake, hissing out, “Don’t tell me you came by yourself, don’t tell me this is happening-” and Peter stuttered through his hyperventilating, barely getting out one small, “Don’t be mad, don’t be mad-”

Bucky paused, blood still boiling at a roar but taking in the teen cowering away as much as he could in the older man’s grip. Grabbing Peter’s suit by the scruff of it’s neck, he dragged the teen to the ground and under a desk, because the last thing they needed was a HYDRA agent walking by the lab and seeing them.

“You’re gonna be calm, and you have five seconds to explain.” Bucky growled and Peter whimpered out, “Well, it’s not a school night, so I thought-” The teen stifled a yelp when the iron hand on the back of his neck tightened and he choked out, “I found a loophole in getting access to the mission files!”

“That doesn’t explain Why. You. Are. Here.”

Peter took a shaky breath, looking away from the older man as fear gripped his insides. “I saw the mission reports from the other HYDRA bases. Tony went. And… I heard Beck say he was on standby tonight. I thought he gave up being Iron Man after Thanos, so why is he being sent out on missions? Isn’t he just supposed to help with multiverse travel?”

Bucky blinked back in surprise.

“He’s helping where he’s needed. If threats get in the way that could compromise you-”

“It can’t be Mr. Stark!” Peter hissed back anxiously. “I’ll go instead, I want to go instead, but it can’t be Mr. Stark again, it’s too dangerous, I can’t let him-”

He saw Tony, vivid as the day it happened, burnt skin and dripping blood, glassy eyes and a low death rattle playing over and over in Peter’s mind.

“I can’t let him get hurt. I promise, really, I can beat these guys, just a little webs here, a little webs there, I got this!”

Bucky stared at Peter speechless for a moment, weighing his lack of options. Finally, he sighed and gripped Peter firmly by the jaw, like a parent scolding their child.

“Now listen to me, if- look at me, Queens.” Peter’s embarrassed shifting eyes focused back on Bucky guiltily. “You will not leave my sight, you understand me? You will not jump in the line of fire, or run off to fight someone. And if something happens and I tell you you make a break for it without me- you will run. And. You. Will. Not. Look. Back. Do I make myself clear?”

Gravity sinking in, Peter nodded nervously and Bucky said, “I wanna hear it, punk.”

“I swear Mr. B- I mean... Bucky. Really.” 

Bucky stared at the teen long and hard, knowing if he really was anything like Steve, that promise was as good as void.

“And stay behind me.” Bucky grunted as he rolled out from out from under the desk, Peter re-activating his mask and trailing behind.

Change of plans, Bucky decided to himself. They find Beck and get the hell out of there. Fuck the mission and fuck finding some leads. HYDRA  _ knew _ that Peter was dropped into their universe, and Bucky’s stomach flipped at the idea of them capturing the kid, dissecting him, torturing him to figure out how much he could endure before enslaving him as another asset.

The wing they landed in was empty, seeming to not be used during the night and they ghosted through it silently, automatic rifle tight in Bucky’s grip as Peter glanced at the older man nervously. Suddenly, stopping dead in his tracks, a familiar cold shiver ran up the back of Peter’s neck.

Bucky was body slammed forward, Peter tackling him to the ground a split second before the wall they were standing in front of burst open, shrapnel flying as Quentin Beck was thrown into the hallway, multiple four-legged bear sized robots mauling him, attempting to smash open the glass of his orb helmet and tearing at his armor plating.

A shrill scream of an alarm rattled Peter’s brain as the hallway began flashing red, shocking him for just a moment before he realized what was unfolding before him. He shot a web out and tore one of the machine’s arm right off, grabbing it firmly and using it to beat the robots off Beck, their metal bodies flying.

“Bad robot dog, bad!” Peter yelled, and the robots slowly turned their beady red laser eyes to the teen. Peter paled behind his mask before he dropped the arm and pleaded, “I was just kidding!”

“What happened?!” Bucky yelled at Beck, pulling the man to his feet, before Beck gasped from behind his helmet, “My illusions don’t work on robots, I don’t understand, the other HYDRA bases didn’t have-”

“Run if you don’t want to be implanted with robot eggs!” Peter screamed, grabbing both men and yanking them into a sprint down the winding hallways, the two men struggling to keep up with the teen who was turning erratically while they heard the smashing of metallic claws on the floor as the artificial beasts pursued them.

“Kid, don’t!” Bucky yelled as Peter burst through a set of double doors, unknowingly exploding into the warehouse section of the facility.

Spider-senses tingling so hard he almost saw double vision, Peter gasped at the sight of dozens and dozens of HYDRA soldiers in black military gear already rushing towards them. He hesitated for a split second, mind racing looking for a way out, when metal jaws clamped onto his leg, the teen crying out in pain as the robot’s teeth broke through even his reinforced black suit material and flung him across the room, Peter eating metal as he smashed face first into the floor and tumbled violently until he hit a wall.

Gasping in pain, Peter already knew the robot was upon him when he shot a web to the ceiling and ziplined up, rapidly swinging through the warehouse with a painful grunt as all the beasts joined in on the hunt, chasing him down a side hallway and deeper into the facility.

“Keep an eye on Peter!” Quentin barked to Bucky, floating up on a cloud of green and swirling the mist in his hands, cloud growing bigger and bigger in a tornado fury before he forced the smoke to burst through the warehouse windows, trailing high into the sky, their only signal to the observing Avengers back at base. Bucky didn’t even nod, just sprinted towards the running fight and away from the smoke Beck had already wrapped the soldiers up into.

Beck grunted, trapping every soldier in an illusion where every other person looked like Mysterio, the real one now invisible to their eyes in hopes that he could leave them to fight each other while he pursued his other two teammates in the chase.

“Get the drones!” Someone from the crowd yelled, and before Beck could fly off down the hall, drones popped out and blocked the entrance to the hallway Peter had run down, causing Beck to recoil. “You have got to be kidding me.” Beck hissed under his breath, flying off in the other direction as bullets rained towards him, barely missing their mark.

  
  


Not much room to swing, Peter grunted as he bolted down hallways, occasionally turning around and smashing in the metallic skull of a robot pursuing him, unable to stop for more than one at a time or else they’d all catch up and be on him at once. There were only two left when he heard soldiers shouting, coming from the direction he had been running towards, Peter running calculations as to how he was going to fend off from both sides. Suddenly, a metal arm shot out and grabbed one of the robot’s heads, shattering it with a squeeze of a fist as Bucky appeared. 

Peter webbed the last one and smashed it through another set of doors, before yelling, “Come on!” At Bucky and running into the new room, only to see it was a massive storage collection of weapons, going up multiple floors like a medium sized skyscraper and no other exit.

“Never mind.” Peter whimpered out, but the room was already being stormed by the HYDRA soldiers and Peter lost count at 200 men charging towards them. Peter looked at Bucky and Bucky looked back, eyebrows knitted and head hung low as he clicked his rifle to activate, and Peter said, “Okay, I know you’re gonna be mad, but-”

He didn’t have time to finish his sentence before bullets began to rain down on the pair, Peter zipping away on his web and towards the men.

“I’m gonna kill you after this, Queens.” Bucky mumbled under his breath as he charged towards the HYDRA soldiers. “ _ ‘You swear’, _ my ass.” 

Flipping through the air, Peter building up a violent momentum as he burst through the crowd, sending soldiers flying, letting it carry his body straight up before he drove back down into the middle of a ring of enemies. Webbing so fast it was nearly a blur, Peter disarmed who he could, disabled as many as he could manage, and struck out on the pure instinct of his tingle, head pounding at having to regulate the strength of his punches as to not kill any non-super humaned enemies. The blaring gunshots of not only the HYDRA soldiers, but of Bucky’s own fighting, caused a ringing in his ears and he shot a web out to the stair railing what would be a few floors above him, whipping away to get away from the blaring noise overwhelming his senses. 

Immediately, the soldiers ran up the stairs in pursuit, Bucky cursing under his breath and running to the other end of the room and sprinting up those set of stairs, the two staircase trails wrapping and intertwining for access to all the weapons stored into the walls.

Peter whipped between stairs cases, punching out a majority of the soldiers in pursuit when he felt that damn tingle again, shooting a web out and flying a few more floors up the staircase when the robot beast reappeared, the throw Peter previously made not fully smashing it as it sparked with malfunctions.

“My apartment building doesn’t allow pets, I can’t take you home!” Peter cried out in frustration before it leapt from the railing and tackled him onto a stairwell platform.

  
  
  
  


Tony bolted up at the desk, coffee mug tipping and splashing everywhere as he, Steve, and Natasha stared at the monitor as the warehouse windows of the HYDRA base shattered and green smoke began pouring out.

“What’s happening?!” Steve barked and Nat began furiously typing, calling back, “I have no idea, their mission status hasn’t changed, we’ve have no incoming calls, I don’t-”

Tony bolted from the mission room, something was wrong, very wrong, very very wrong, blood running cold he burst through Peter’s bedroom door without knocking, light from the hallway a small sliver that showed a figure wrapped up in bed in the dark room.

“Do not tell me, do not fucking tell me-”

He whipped the blanket back.

Pillows.

Just pillows.

Tony’s legs turned to jelly with shock, and he might have even collapsed to his knees had he not slapped a hand to his chest, suit engulfing his body. 

  
  
  
  
  


Peter yelped at the contact when landing, bringing his arms up defensively as the robot on top of him mauled at his face and neck, legs kicking out from underneath him when the creature was knocked off its balance and into a wall, Peter looking up and seeing Bucky with his gun raised high, having beat the creature off with the stock of his rifle. Gun held firmly in his metal arm, Bucky reached out his real arm to help Peter up when the teen saw a grey blur and heard Bucky grunt out, the robot tackling the older man and it’s metal teeth slicing into Bucky’s human shoulder as it clamped onto the flesh, Bucky stumbling back into a wall as the robot thrashed it’s head, trying to mangle Bucky.

Peter webbed it’s head and tore it clean off and Bucky fell to one knee, taking in panting breaths through gritted teeth and Peter ran up to him, freezing when the man hunched over and he saw one metal fang slightly embedded in the back of Bucky’s shoulder alongside deep gouges in the skin. Peter instantly dropped to his knees in front of his teammate and panicked, gasping out, “Are you-, I-, what do I-” before the vibrations of the metal floor he was on alerted him of the handful of soldiers sprinting up the stairs towards them, coming from both sides. 

“Don’t tap out on me yet, Queens.” Bucky grunted painfully as he stood, just enough time to throw a punch at the arriving soldiers. Fury flooding his body, Peter whipped around and smashed through all the soldiers he saw. The two fought back to back, Peter slowly forming a confident grin as he easily overpowered his side, until he felt one last chilly tingle up the back of his neck. Peter turned, just in time to see a small device thrown onto Bucky’s metal arm, letting out an electric shock that was effortlessly conducted through his body, shocking enough to paralyze the man for less than a split second before a HYDRA soldier flung him over the rail.

Eyes widening, Peter leapt from where they had been fighting near the top of the room, body a straight arrow as he dove after Bucky, whipping his arm out in a web to catch the man and watching in what felt slow motion, as he was less than a heartbeat too late.

Bucky crashed to the ground, Peter smashing ontop of the larger figure, feeling something splatter across the material of his mask. Bolting up onto his hands, Peter froze as he looked down at Bucky under him, one lens of his mask stained a messy, wet red.

Blood.

Blood and blood and blood and blood.

Peter lost his breath as he saw Bucky laying on his back, the thick metal fang of the robot stabbing all the way through the man’s shattered shoulder blade and piercing out right under his clavicle. Bucky hissed in pain, throwing his head back, teeth clenched and eyes screwed shut. 

White noise screaming in his ears, Peter crouched over Bucky, shaky hands hovering over the wound, Bucky’s splatter of blood running down his mask, and he choked out tearfully, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Bucky, I’m-”

Bucky’s metal arm, free from the paralysis, fisted the front of Peter’s black suit and pulled him closer.

“I can still fight.” He grunted out. “Run. I swear to God, Pete, if you don’t run-”

Peter couldn’t hear the stomps of the last few HYDRA soldiers bolting down the stairs towards them, gasping out, “I can’t, I can't, not without-”

“You swore!” Bucky hissed back and Peter looked up as the room’s door burst open again, twenty more HYDRA soldiers rushing in, holding batons crackling with electricity. His eyes shot back down, trembling at the sight of blood pooling around Bucky’s figure, metal flooring looking more like the ripped up soil under Thanos’ feet.

“RUN!” Bucky roared, but Peter shook his head and cried out, “I’m not leaving without you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is one of the longest chapters I've written (if not THE longest) so reviews would be appreciated while I recover ;A; <3
> 
> This chapter was brought to you by listening to the Nier Automata OST and Kingdom Hearts orchestra arrangement on repeat xD


End file.
